


Inside, Outside, Upside Down

by bluerosebouquet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Punk, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dean/Cas Big Bang 2020 (Supernatural), F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Punk Castiel (Supernatural), References to Drugs, references to choking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:15:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 49,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26917216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosebouquet/pseuds/bluerosebouquet
Summary: Dean’s life is, for once, less like a roiling ocean and a lot more like a clear glass lake. He’s got a steady job that pays well, two of the funniest roommates in the world, a brother that’s poised to graduate valedictorian, a long-term girlfriend, and the kind of best friend he used to only dream of. It’s exactly what’s he’s always wanted. Until, of course, life turns his clear lake back into choppy waters when he and Lisa call it quits for good and he ends up at Cas’ door at two in the morning, ready to honor the agreement they made when they were too drunk in college. A rebound weekend, hook up with each other after a breakup to numb the pain of loss. An easy, surefire way to not catch feelings. Sounds perfect, until Dean catches the very feelings he’s been avoiding for who knows how long. Which is a problem, because he’s straight, and Cas is just a little too out of his league.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Others - Relationship, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester
Comments: 90
Kudos: 395
Collections: DCBB 2020, SPN Best Works, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Twisted Halos

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, huge huge huge thank you to the amazing [marsajar](https://marsajar.tumblr.com/) for not only creating truly [amazing art](https://marsajar.tumblr.com/post/631531061833302016/i-am-so-excited-to-share-with-you-my-art-for-this), but for also just being a totally awesome partner who didn't mind when I disappeared into the aether after working literally *all the time*. Your art is completely incredible and I am so so so lucky you chose this story <3
> 
> I'm really excited to be a part of my first ever bang! Not to be a total weirdo but I literally had a dream about this concept and was, of course, immediately drawn to Dean and Cas to bring it to life.
> 
> Also, in case you wanted to listen to the music that helped get this story all the way here, each chapter title is the title of a song that I think fits in the world.
> 
> Love always,
> 
> Lilly

Dean’s pissed. He’s had a shitty day, his job sucks sometimes, he’s dead on his feet, working a 12 hour shift, and he’s vibrating out of his skin from the music coming from the Roadhouse.

The music is loud, so glaringly, violently loud that it makes Dean feel like his ears are bleeding. He heard it down the block as he walked toward the door, and he had to go in the front door instead of the designated entrance for the apartment upstairs, he wasn’t one to not make his feelings known, you know? Especially when he’s in a bad mood, because he knows that Cas is always ready to verbally spar with him, and I he’s lucky maybe Charlie and Benny will start a real fight with him and he can get out some of his aggression. That’s a good and healthy thing, right? Very healthy way of coping.

Dean feels like his brain is turning to soup at the volume of music that’s coming out of the bar. So this is why Cas wears earplugs all the time, he’d be deaf within ten seconds if he didn’t. Dean screws up his face as he gets closer to the object of his quest, who’s currently playing the bass with so much enthusiasm Dean really has no hope of reaching him until the set’s over. So Dean is forced to wait, sticking his fingers in his ears, which earns him a serious bitchface from Benny on the drums, making him glad that he was out of arm’s reach. He leans against the wall, head moving to the music in spite of his bad mood. He liked this new set, he and Sam would have to come down an watch it when they performed it later. Just not at 6pm on a fucking school night.

He tries not to watch Cas for too long, but man, there’s something about him when he performs. Dean usually compares him to a fish out of water with all the flailing, which is quick to earn him a slap to the side of the head, but there’s an easy grace about Cas when he’s playing, his hair is all over the place, he’s got this look of peace on his face, his mouth moves to the lyrics that Charlie sings…or, well, screams, depends on the song. Anyway, this is getting kinda girly, which Dean is not. So the second the song ends he marches up to Cas and pokes him in the chest.

“Can I help you?” Cas sweeps his neon green hair out of his eyes, eyeing Dean with a look that tells him he’s already on thin ice.

“Yeah, can you keep it the fuck down, my brother is trying to study.”

A smirk curls Cas’ mouth.

“You do know I don’t live here, right? Take it up with your roommates, or maybe the bar you live under.”

“Hey,” Ellen snaps from the counter, “I don’t choose when y’all practice.”

“I have to mentally prepare okay, I have a date tonight and it needs to go well, so keep it down.”

“I thought we were keeping it down for Sam.”

“You are, you’re keeping it down for me too.”

“You’re no fun, Dean,” Cas pushes his shoulder playfully, and Dean immediately tries to get him in a headlock. It predictably turns into a three against one battle, Dean being the one, Benny and Charlie always quick to jump to Cas’ aide.

“Some roommates you are,” Dean wheezes as Benny’s arm wraps around his neck.

“You’re disturbing band practice,” Charlie grins at him, bending his fingers backwards, sometimes he felt like he had four siblings instead of just one.

“Cas,” Dean look around helplessly for him, hoping that he might take some pity on him. No such luck however, Cas was simply rifling through Dean’s bag that he had dropped on one of the bar tables, “Get away from that!”

“How many condoms do you have in here? Are you planning to let Lisa walk for the next year and a half or do you just have that short of a refractory period? Don’t answer that.”

“Can’t anyway,” Dean chokes, tapping Benny on the forearm, “Come on man.”

Benny releases him with a chuckle and Charlie lets go of his fingers.

“Fuck you,” he spits, massaging his throat.

“You asked for it, brother, band practice is a sacred time and you know that.”

“If it wasn’t the end of the day-”

“Oh yeah?” Benny rolls his eyes, smirking at Dean, “I could take you any day of the week.”

“Seriously Dean, how many times do you think you can fuck one person in an evening?” Cas is still looking in his bag, Dean grabs it away from his prying eyes.

“I just needed to restock.”

Cas scoffs at him, sweeping his hair back, the roots are starting to show, matching the already dark sides, a style of mohawk that Dean was certain no one else on earth could pull off. He needs a touchup. Dean tells him as much.

“You really are looking for a fight today,” Cas smiles at him, and there’s a note of danger behind it, always a thrill.

“Just making conversation.”

“Can you fuck off somewhere Dean? Some of us have things to do.”

“I just came back from things to do, I have a job unlike you deadbeats.”

“I have a job!” all three of them chorus and Ellen shoos Dean towards the door.

“Ellen, not you too,” Dean whines as he’s pushed towards the back.

“Come back when you’re in a better mood,” she grins at him, snapping her hand towel at him.

“Come back when you get fucked you mean,” Cas calls, and he hears Charlie and Benny snicker loudly.

Look, Dean likes living above the Roadhouse. Ellen gave them free food whenever they wanted it, it was right around the block from Sam’s school just a ten minute drive to Dean’s work, the place was super nice, rent was cheap. But man, it was fucking loud, and Sam had to study. And Sam comes first, they knew that.

He drags himself up the stairs at the back of the Roadhouse, and swings the door open, the floor already vibrating from the music which has started up again. Fuck them. He makes a beeline for the fridge and pulls out a beer, twisting off the top and tossing it carelessly on the counter before heading straight for the couch and the blessed TV, which he would have to turn up to max volume if he wanted to hear anything, but it was his cross to bear. Rent’s cheap, he reminds himself, rent’s so cheap, rent’s so cheap.

Halfway through an episode of a shitty cop show, Sam comes out of his room, headphones on and moving gently to whatever folky music he’s clearly listening to. His face brightens when he sees Dean sprawled out on the couch, and pulls his headphones down around his neck, grinning at the cacophony downstairs.

“I don’t know why you even bother with the TV on Thursdays, you know that’s their practice day,” Sam opens the fridge and stares aimlessly for a few seconds before turning back to Dean, turning on the puppy dog eyes that he knows will get him essentially anything he wants in the entire universe. Damn him.

“What’s the face?” Dean calls from the couch, seriously considering jumping up and down on the floor until they stopped playing.

“Can you make dinner?”

“Ugh,” Dean sighs, heaving himself up and sidling up to the fridge, assessing what they still had. Saturdays were his grocery run days, so by Thursday Charlie had usually cleared them out of any and all snacks, swearing up and down she only took her fair share, but they all knew that was total bullshit, “How’s mac n cheese sound?”

“Hell yeah,” Sam grins happily at him, plopping down onto one of the bar chairs they had stolen from Ellen two years before, “Anyway, how was your day?”

“Fine, I feel like they put me through one of the turbines instead of me fixing them.”

“You like it though, right?”

Sam’s face is full of concern, always so worried about him. Almost as worried as Dean got about him.

“Yeah dude, it’s especially great to put the degree I busted my ass for six years for to good use. Plus I can pick up girls by saying I’m an engineer so-”

Sam scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“So your girlfriend?”

“Yeah. I need to pick her up sometimes.”

Dean’s shoulders relax by degrees from the hard day as Sam chatters loudly over the loud baseline and screaming guitar riffs from downstairs. Not the most relaxing background noise, but becoming less like something that made Dean want to grind his teeth together.

Sam was halfway through telling him about a science project that had nearly burned down the school (Sam was always more into English than science), and how it was hotdog lunch day, his least favorite, when the thrumming beat of cacophony below suddenly cut off.

About ten seconds after the music stopped, the sound of a different type of drumbeat, the sound of three pairs of feet thundering up the steps. Dean sighed, bracing for impact.

“That smells fucking good,” Charlie burst through the door, a whirlwind of color and sound at all times, the style of her music completely at odds with the bright yellow jacket and neon blue Doc Martens and multiple _Harry Potter_ tattoos that adorned her arms and shoulders.

Benny slung himself in after her, all southern drawl and punk rock t shirts that have so many holes they may as well be swiss cheese. He slaps Dean on the back as he makes a swipe for the spoon.

Sam beams as soon as he sees them, and Dean’s general annoyance at their very loud existence melts away. It’s easy to be happy when Sam is happy, still the baby of the family even though he’s taller than any of them at seventeen years old.

“That smells damn good man, hope you made enough, I feel like I could eat a horse.”

“What? I can’t hear you, sorry, I must’ve gone deaf, some assholes were practicing screaming and beating on pots and pans downstairs for two hours.”

“You are such a fucking baby,” Charlie ruffles Sam’s hair as she passes by him, sniffing the pan on the stove and dodging Dean’s hand as he shoos her away, “Why are you so mean to me? I’m but a starving child.”

“I have an actual child to feed, so keep your paws off until he’s had some.”

“I am not a child!” Sam yells and Benny laughs as he pulls a takeout box from the fridge and throws it, Styrofoam and all, into the microwave.

“You’re gonna burn the place down,” Cas points out, sprawled out on the couch, having ditched his leather jacket the second he walked in the door and stretching his fingers in front of him like he’s performing some weird kind of yoga.

“Maybe, but that’s why I have renter’s insurance.”

Dean scoffs.

“As if you actually have renter’s insurance. We’re all fucked if this place goes up in flames, especially so because Ellen will literally eat us all alive and Sam will have to live with her and Jo and he’s not ready to live with someone like Jo. It’s lose lose really.”

“Fine,” Benny stretches and scratches his beard, “I’ll put the matches and the lighter fluid away then.”

“Thanks so much-” Dean snarks, turning to make sure he didn’t burn down the house himself with his mac n cheese, “this is done, come get it. Sam first please!”

Sam digs in and his plate is clear within about fifteen seconds, the damn kid eats like lightning and grows like a weed, he’s been eating them all out of house and home for the last six months, Dean feels like he’s feeding a thoroughbred sometimes.

“Hey Sam, are you part vacuum cleaner?” Charlie asks as he gets his second plate, right as she’s sitting down with her own.

“Yeah, on our cousin’s side,” Sam loads up his plate again, not waiting to sit down before he starts eating, “And I was hungry. Lunch sucked at school today.”

Cas sidles up to get his own plate, and even though Dean still owes him a black eye for pulling out all his condoms in front of Ellen, he lets him slide past, his hands resting briefly on Dean’s hips as he grabs a fork from the drawer next to where Dean is standing. It’s a familiar pressure, and Dean feels all gooey and domestic as hell when they’re all having dinner together, even if it’s kinda subpar mac n cheese and it’s nearly nine pm. He knew how to raise a kid, but sometimes you just had to let things go.

“I thought you had a date tonight?” Cas questions, resting his chin on Dean’s shoulder as he lets his pasta cool enough for him to eat.

Dean’s stomach drops to his shoes and he scrambles to look at his phone. Shit.

It’s fine, he just has four missed calls and ten texts from Lisa, which looked like they got shorter and progressively angrier as the evening had worn on. He’s so fucked, and not in the good way.

“Uh oh,” Charlie starts to laugh, because Dean surely looks like a ghost, he could feel all the blood draining out of his face like someone had just punctured a hole in his side.

“Oh fuck. I gotta go, I gotta-” he scrambles around, trying his best to find something halfway decent to wear. What were they supposed to be doing tonight? It had something to do with sports, bowling? Golfing maybe? Were they going to a game? No, that wasn’t possible, it was Thursday night. He presses Lisa’s contact in his phone. Straight to voicemail.

“Okay, hey Sam? Bed by eleven please. Make sure he actually does Benny. I’ll uh, I’ll see you guys later.”

He basically falls down the back stairs and out into the alley connecting their apartment to the outside world. He calls Lisa again, she picks up after two rings.

“Lis, I am so-”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it really isn’t, I’m so sorry, Sam wanted me to make him dinner, I lost track of time, the guys came back from band practice, all of these excuses sound lame-”

“It’s fine, Dean. I’m home already anyway.”

Guilt bubbles in his gut like acid.

“I really am so sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”

Lisa scoffs, it stings, but hell he deserves it.

“Goodnight, Dean.”

“Okay…okay, goodnight Lis, I-”

She hangs up. Dean stands on the dirty city sidewalk, watching the cars and the people walk in and out of the bars and restaurants lining the streets. He runs his hands through his hair, cursing himself. He was really trying to get better, trying to put her first, hell, they had been together so long sometimes it felt like he was putting an extension of himself before anyone else, but then again, you probably didn’t get in fights with your right arm every week either. He really does feel really guilty, she had probably had Ben spend the night at a friend’s house for this, hadn’t made dinner. He was a shit boyfriend. Fuck.

He stalks his way back up the stairs and swings the door to the apartment, letting it slam behind him. Sam, Charlie, Benny, and Cas, all of whom had been chattering genially around the TV fall silent immediately when they see him. Well, the writing was pretty well on the wall, and he doesn’t want to ruin their fun, so he decides to slink into his room without saying anything. Yes, he’s a melodramatic bitch, no, he is not going to change, thanks for asking.

He really doesn’t have any right to be being so dramatic, this was his fault anyway, but he knew it was going to take weeks to fix and probably like three more visits at that relationship counselor’s office. Ugh, Naomi. He hates her. But Lisa insists that it helps them and he’s not going to argue with her on it, he had tried that, it hadn’t worked out for him.

He stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds, he looked like shit anyway. His hair was all gross from working at the plant all day, he was in his rattiest flannel and a beat up t-shirt, even his jeans looked dirty from the grease and oil stains they had acquired during his shift. He looked a real mess, maybe it was better this way, Lisa would’ve whipped his ass if he picked her up like this. With a sigh, he strips off his jeans and his flannel, pulling his t shirt over his head. He heads to the shower and scrubs off the dirt and grime of the day and pulls on his favorite warm flannel pajama pants and settles down on his bed, scrolling through Instagram and putting on a random playlist from spotify. 

He hears a soft knock on his door after about twenty minutes, but Cas doesn’t give him a chance to respond before he’s in, closing the door quietly behind him and sliding next to Dean with his back to the wall, so they were shoulder to shoulder.

“So,” Cas starts quietly, rubbing Dean’s shoulder in a comforting way, “that didn’t go great.”

“No,” Dean replies, a little curtly. Cas seems to get the hint that he doesn’t want to talk about this at all under any circumstances anyway, so he just pulls out his own phone from his pocket and starts scrolling next to Dean. They sit that way for the next half an hour or so, occasionally showing each other a funny meme or video. Cas pulls out one of Dean’s all time favorite vines that has him on the floor for five minutes because it was just so him when he was getting his degree.

“You wanna talk about this at all, you looked like such a sad puppy when you came back in here.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but there’s no malice to Cas’ words, he looks more concerned than anything else.

“It was probably for the best anyway, I looked like shit, she would’ve been pissed if I had picked her up that way,” he continues on even as Cas rolls his eyes and sets his lips in the most Cas way possible, “I don’t know man, I should’ve set a timer or something, some kinda alarm. You know I’d never do that on purpose, but now I feel like it’s gonna turn into a whole thing, like we’re gonna go back to that therapist counselor or whatever and Lisa’s gonna mention it, and then it’ll turn into this whole thing about how I’m unreliable and always putting other people’s needs over hers and I just…I’m tired. I shouldn’t be talking about this now, I’m just tired.”

“You don’t have to wait to talk about it, we can talk about whatever, you know that.”

Dean sighs, staring at the ground.

“Yeah.”

“Remember that time I was dating that girl and she fucked one of my professors behind my back and then we found out on Yik Yak? And I cried to you for like two weeks straight about it? You’ve seen me at my worst, nothing you say about your 45 year relationship with Lisa is going to phase me.”

Dean laughs in spite of his bad mood.

“I forgot about Yik Yak girl.”

“Lucky you.”

Dean starts to laugh, the sound bubbling up from his gut until he was throwing back his head and laughing in the way that only Cas could make him laugh. Damn him, he was so good at pulling Dean out of any mood he was in ever.

“That does make me feel better.”

Cas nudges his shoulder with his own, giving him the sideways smile that he was really truly pleased.

“Glad I could make it a little better, and you’ll fix it. Just show up to her house with a dozen roses and her favorite takeout and she’ll be fine. You never bail on stuff like this, if you just explain it-”

“Yeah I know, I just hate letting her down, I feel like I do that way too much, you know.”

Cas rolls his eyes and huffs out a sigh.

“You don’t, and I didn’t come in here for you to be all mopey. You wanna join the gang or hang in here?”

Dean hesitates, but he knows that Cas won’t judge him either way.”

“Can we just turn on some shitty TV?”

Cas smiles and pulls Dean’s xbox controller towards him, sliding it across the bed and wiggling under Dean’s covers at the same time. Dean smiles, one of the best parts about have a best friend for over a decade is that you don’t even have to say anything to communicate with them. Like having a partner but without all the drama, because god knows, with partners it was always needlessly complicated.

Cas turns on Dean’s favorite sitcom, one that Cas himself hates and derides as being infantile, but they laugh along to it anyway, staying up far later than they should, especially since Dean has work in the morning and it’s not the type of job you want to slack at anyway. He never asks Cas to leave, they’ve shared a bed way more often than Dean’s shared a bed with anyone else, so falling asleep next to him was easy. Cas’s light breathing, the way his head was thrown back on the pillow, the canned laughter from the TV in Dean’s room, Dean’s arm snaked around Cas’ chest, it was the perfect way to end a shitty evening.


	2. What Lies Beneath

Dean wakes up to his alarm and the smell of eggs and bacon coming from the kitchen. He sniffs the air like a hungry dog and pads out to the living room to find Sam fully dressed and ready for school, with Cas at the stove, making omelets with green onions and enough cheese to keep a dairy in business for the next decade, which were Dean’s favorites.

He grins at Dean as he comes around the corner and Sam looks at him with concern written all over his face.

“Hey man, everything okay?”

Dean ruffles his hair as he heads to the fridge, grabbing the milk that was already getting low, goddamn Charlie and her addiction to cereal at 2am, and pours a glass. Calcium is good for you, fuck off.

“Don’t worry about me, Sammy, I’m cool as a cucumber.”

“You want me to talk to Ben at school? See if I can- nah that’s a terrible idea.”

“Thanks for not finishing it,” Dean collapses into the chair next to Sam at their rickety table in his boxers, as Cas slides a literal mountain of eggs on his plate, “It’s okay man, we’ll figure it out.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes, Cas leaning against the counter, his hair too long, falling, bright green, into his eyes, which keep darting over at Dean.

“Okay kid, it’s almost seven thirty, you want me to come with?”

“Nah I’m good, I’m meeting Max today by the bus stop and we’re walking together. He’s super nice, he didn’t even mind that I nearly got him killed in chemistry yesterday.”

Sam waves to them as he slings his backpack across his shoulders and bounds out the door.

“You want me to walk you to work?” Cas smirks, dodging the fork Dean launches at his head.

“Fuck off. I gotta order Lisa some flowers and beg her to have dinner with me tonight.”

“Oh nice, hope you’ll be going to a nice restaurant.”

“I was thinking that fancy place on Main, the Italian place we all went to last year for Charlie’s birthday.”

Cas sets his plate in the sink with a clatter as Dean saunters off to get dressed, trying to pick the least filthy jeans he had left. Fuck, he really needed to do laundry this weekend.

Cas is ready at the door when he rounds to corner, his ratty and much loved tank top hanging by a thread over his shoulders, green hair in his eyes, ink spattering his arms, his shoulders, the side of his neck, the glint of metal in his ears and on his nose. He grins at Dean as Dean pats his pockets. Keys, wallet, phone. He’s good.

“I’ll see you later, yeah?” Cas pats his cheek, thumb lingering by his mouth, “Good luck with Lisa. I feel like you’ll need it.”

Dean sighs as he heads out the door, letting it shut behind him. He did need luck for that.

He heads to the florist before work, picking up a bouquet of sunflowers and forget-me-nots for Lisa to drop at her door. He hasn’t done something like this since they were in college and Dean had spent two days with Charlie and Cas at the lake and had completely forgotten to tell her about it. They had broken up for two weeks until he had showed up at her apartment in a rainstorm (a nice touch from nature itself) and whisper-begged for her to take him back so as not to wake a sleeping Ben.

He drives to her house on the nice side of town, watching as the houses got larger and father apart the closer he got to her house. It was such a nice, quiet neighborhood. He had always dreamed in raising Sam in a neighborhood like this, it reminded him of their family home in Kansas. He and Lisa had thrown around the idea of him and Sam moving in, granted, that was when they weren’t fighting.

He takes the drive to think about just how fucking long they’d been together, nearly nine years now. He had been all brash swagger when they had met, so self-confident in only the way a twenty-one year old with a little bit of an inflated ego and an oversized leather jacket could have. She was a kinesiology student who was, let’s face it, way out of his league, but they had bonded over their shared love of classic rock and good seafood. Falling in love with her had been easy, and even when he had told him she had a five year old son and expected him to run in the other direction, he had leaned in (which even surprised him). At this point, even though their myriad of breakups and fights, being with Lisa was all he knew, and that comfort was something he had always craved, and he certainly didn’t want to let go of now.

He breaks out of his reverie when he pulls up to Lisa’s house, takes the steps up to the door two at a time and knocks gently on the door. He knows Ben had left for school and Lisa was due at the studio any minute.

Dean makes sure not to count the seconds before she answers the door.

Thirty-seven seconds. Lisa opens the door, dressed in a yoga outfit with her dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail. She looks less pissed than Dean expected.

“Hey,” he sounds breathless, and she smiles a little at him, her eyes softening by degrees.

“Hey, whatcha got there?”

“The first part of an epic apology the likes of which you’ve never seen.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” she smiles a little wider, taking the flowers from him.

“Tonight, dinner at Carmelo’s and then we take a walk by the lake and look at the stars.”

She shakes her head at him, but her eyes are bright as she does it, Dean knows how to apologize.

“Fine, I’ll see if my sister can watch Ben.”

“Aces-”

“You’re still on thin ice though.”

“Well deserved.”

She lets him kiss her cheek before pushing him out the door so she can get to work, and Dean heads to work himself, in a much better mood now that he had started to smooth things over with her. He would save the actual apology for the restaurant by the water.

He rolls up to the plant with ten minutes to spare before the start of his shift. Does it make him viscerally uncomfortable sometimes that he works at the largest nuclear power plant on the Eastern seaboard sometimes? Yes, he’s seen _Chernobyl_ like everyone else and almost quit on the spot when he saw the makeup on the plant workers and had two panic attacks that he was going to get radiation sickness and die. But then again, it was pretty cool to say that he was a nuclear engineer at the Millstone Power Station, plus they got to live near the beach. So you know, good trade off to potentially looking like an over-microwaved hotdog if something went wrong.

Dean’s shift flies by, he drinks four cups of coffee before lunch and nearly cries over a video one of his coworkers shows him of a man in a child’s Mike Wazowski costume. He eats a granola bar and a bag of chips out of the vending machine because he didn’t have time to make his own lunch, and sends Cas the video before he’s back in the reactor room, doing shit he still doesn’t really understand and making good money for it.

He clocks out, heads home, takes a long and blessedly warm shower, scrubbing the dirt and the grit and the grime off of himself before he shaves for the first time in like ten days, throws on a pair of his “nice” pants and a dressy printed shirt that Charlie had bought him after binging three seasons of _Queer Eye_ in 24 hours and becoming convinced she would be his Tan France. He waves to Charlie and Benny on the couch, slaps Sam on the back, and slams into Cas on his way out the door. Cas smiles at him and kisses him on the cheek, and Dean heads to the Lisa’s with a warmth in his stomach that he can’t explain.

Lisa is waiting for him even though he’s fifteen minutes early. He feels like she might be timing him, but again, it’s to be expected. She looks stunning, in a light green dress that hugs her figure in all the right ways, and Dean is relatively sure he might be drooling as they head downtown, Dean parking right near the water, and helping Lisa out of the car.

“You really are a gentleman today,” she smiles at him, lightly touching his face as he shuts the Impala’s door behind her. He grins, slipping his hand into hers as they headed towards the twinkle-light covered deck of Carmelo’s.

“Just trying to convince you to not break up with me.”

She rolls her eyes and pushes his shoulder playfully.

“You’re slowly winning me over.”

“I know it’s the car, you don’t have to keep dating me to visit it.”

Her laugh is genuine, and Dean feels more relaxed as he holds open the door for her.

They don’t have to wait, because Dean had, like a real adult, made reservations, and they’re seated inside, but right by the windows, so they can watch the bay go by, from the sailboats to the speedboats to the hulking outline of a submarine cutting through the grey-blue water. It’s sorta really beautiful, Dean’s never gotten over living near the ocean, coming from the direct middle of the country and all.

“How was your day?” he asks her after they order appetizers and drinks.

“It was good, the studio’s getting a lot of attention which is great. I think more hipsters are moving out this way so here’s hoping.”

“You deserve it, the place looks great.”

She grins at him again.

“Stop laying it on so thick, if I didn’t know better I’d say you’re trying to seduce me with this fancy restaurant and your compliments.”

“I told you, I’m just trying to make sure you don’t break up with me.”

“So what happened?” she doesn’t sound accusatory, just curious.

“Seriously? I lost track of time. Came home, the guys were practicing so it was super loud, Sam wanted me to make him dinner, they came up and we were just talking when I realized what time it was. I really am so sorry, honey.”

“That is what phone alarms are for.”

“You’re right.”

“Well, since these oysters are so good, I guess I can forgive you.”

He grins.

“I’m glad we’ve been together long enough to know the way to your heart.”

It’s a nice night, he and Lisa talk easily, the anger and guilt of the previous night forgotten. Dean laughs with her like he hasn’t in what feels like years. Even when he steals a little bit of salmon off her plate, which she normally hates, she just shakes her head and smiles.

They take a walk by the beach after dinner, holding hands, Dean holding Lisa’s shoes in his free hand, and they just talk. Not about big stuff, just about little things, small talk that Dean always found so easy with her. It was nights like this that reminded him why they had stuck it out through everything.

He kisses her on her front porch, and leaves it at that like the gentleman that he is. They end up having phone sex at two am though, so the gentleman thing kinda goes out the window.

It was a peace that lasts several weeks, Dean hangs out with the gang when he can, but spends most of his time with her, soaking up the fact that their relationship is actually in a good place for once, trying not to take a second of it for granted. Of course, they’re both stubborn, type A personalities, and that means their loud opinions couldn’t be ignored for long.

“So I was reading something I thought we should talk about,” Lisa is sprawled across Dean’s legs on her couch, turning the pages of a mystery novel that she’d read at least a hundred times as he blows through twenty levels of Candy Crush (it’s his one vice on the phone, don’t judge him).

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

She sits up to face him, with a business-like look on her face that makes Dean uneasy, because it’s usually a face that indicates change, which Dean, like a mule, does not like.

“I was reading this article my girlfriend Sandy sent over to me, talking about the effects that noise has on kids, specifically teenagers, and I thought we should maybe talk about it.”

The butterflies in Dean’s stomach form into a hard knot, which sinks down like a rock, making him feel sick. Lisa had never really hidden that she didn’t particularly like where he and   
Sam lived. You couldn’t catch her dead at Ellen’s on a busy night, and she only came in the apartment when it was absolutely necessary. She had also complained that Dean was dragging his feet on them moving in together, which had resulted in a good six months with the relationship counselor and a feelings journal that Dean had made Charlie and Cas do for him because, uh, no. The noise thing had been a recent tactic, something she knew would work, because it had to do with Sam.

“What do you mean?” he feigns innocence, trying to put off what he knew was going to turn into an argument. Sometimes he felt like they were married already, the way they argued over everything. But that’s normal, right? They’ve been together for so long.

“It just had all this research, all this stuff on how kids should grow up in an environment that’s quiet and calm and _safe_ ,” Dean doesn’t like the implication, but he bites his tongue, not wanting to really escalate the situation, “and that it can be bad for them in the long run to not be able to get good sleep.”

“That makes sense I guess,” Dean avoids her eyes, toying with the edge of an afghan she has hanging over the couch.

“So I think we should talk a little more about you and Sam moving in here at the end of the school year. Sam only has his senior year left, and then Ben is starting tenth grade, I think it’ll be really good for us to do the family thing for a year. Plus it’ll just be so much better for Sam mentally-”

“Lisa, I-”

“Remember what Naomi said, that that should be our-”

“I know what she said Lis, but I just don’t want to pull him out of the only steady place he’s-”

“But you’d be putting him in a more stable place. Listen, I gotta go get Ben from baseball, but just think about it, you know? I really think it’s right for us.”

Dean sighs heavily. He knows the fight is probably already lost.

“I will.”

She smiles and kisses him deeply, and he tries to return it with his usual enthusiasm, but something close to anger is bubbling in his gut, and that bubbling only gets stronger as he heads back to the apartment. By the time he parks and stomps up the steps he’s absolutely boiling, and seeing Charlie, Benny, Cas, and Sam crowded around the PlayStation did nothing to improve his mood.

He tries, unsuccessfully, to sidle quietly into his room, but no such luck. Cas is the only one who seems to immediately pick up on his mood, and watches him from his perch on the armrest of the couch. Charlie and Sam jump up and immediately start chattering away at him. Dean puts on the best smile he can muster, trying to make his excuses for his room, but they won’t let up, and Lisa’s words and the anger bubble over, misdirected at them because he doesn’t have anyone else to snap at.

“I get it okay? Jesus, just let me go to my fucking room in peace.”

He doesn’t even turn to see their reactions, but slams the door so hard that little paint chips flutter down from the ceiling.

He feels guilty the second he kicks off his shoes and collapses on his bed. He tries to calm his breathing in that way that Charlie had showed him when a guy out-hustled him at pool and he almost got thrown out of the bar he actually lived below, but it doesn’t really work. He decides to go for a comfort movie, which is, of course, _The Empire Strikes Back_. He lays back on his bed, listening to Luke nearly get got by a Wampa and getting saved by Han. Dean sort of wishes he was a Bantha, because then he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this shit.

He hears his door creak open lightly, and he just waits for Cas to say something, because he’s the only one brave enough to deal with him when he’s like this. He feels another pang of guilt.

“So how was today?” Cas is staring at Dean over the rim of his beer, tapping the head of the bottle lightly against the metal rings on the left side of his lower lip, making a tiny clinking sound.

“Fine.”

Cas rolls his eyes and sits at the head of Dean’s bed, eyes trained on the screen.

“Don’t fine me, Dean. I know when you’re in a mood, and you snap like that unless you’re in a mood.”

“Fuckin,” Dean starts, and then changes his mind, “Shitty day, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

There’s a little pause as Luke destroys an AT-AT Walker.

“I know you’re lying to me.”

Dean’s eyes snap to him involuntarily. Cas can see right through him, one of the downsides to knowing someone for a fucking decade, there isn’t much you can hide.

“Lisa just, I don’t know, she said she read something that said a lot of noise is bad for a kid’s brains.”

Cas rolls his eyes and sighs, shifting away from Dean slightly. He’s got the set in his mouth that means he’s ready to argue at whatever Dean’s about to say.

“Jesus.”

“Listen, I know you’ve never been crazy about each other, but Ben has always been a good friend to Sam, and-”

“I’m not arguing that, but she’s not Sam’s parent-”

“But she does have a house, and an actual yard. Some quiet space where Sam could-”

“You’re moving in with her?”

The question sounds more like an accusation than an actual question.

“We’re just, it’s, nothing’s decided okay? We’re just talking about it. We’re getting more serious and it would be so nice for Sam to have a place to live that isn’t over a bar.”

Cas bites the inside of his cheek, clearly trying his best to abstain from saying whatever it is that he wanted to say.

“Just say it Cas, I’m going to hear it later anyway.”

Cas pauses and lets out a long breath, running a hand through his hair before locking eyes with Dean.

“It’s just, she always makes you feel like you’re a bad caregiver to him, and you aren’t. You know that right, you’re not. You’re not a bad brother because he lives-”

“Over a bar? He’s seventeen.”

“He’s lived over a bar for nearly a decade, it’s not like you’re fucking abusing him.”

“She really thinks it’d be good for us too though you know. Like we’d be able to spend a little more time together, test run living together before-”

“Before what?” Cas’ eyes widen as Dean avoids his gaze, “You’re not talking about what I think you’re talking about.”

Dean shrugs, turning red at Cas’ indignant look.

“We’ve been together for a long time, since college, and I feel like, what?”

Cas is laughing, laughing so hard that he nearly falls off Dean’s bed.

“Oh yeah, you’ve been together since college. Besides that portion of time, how long was it again, oh that’s right, a year and a half. And then there was that time, six months, and the other time, what was that? Oh yeah, about eight months. You two are a real pinnacle of good Christian togetherness.”

“I know you don’t like her,” Dean starts, but Cas puts up a hand.

“It has nothing to do with me, Dean. It has everything to do with the fact that she consistently makes you feel like you’re taking care of Sam the wrong way. Just because she has a big fancy house that her 87 year old husband left her-”

“Cas, come on.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. It just, it pisses me off that you feel like you’re not doing right by Sam. You’re there for him more than any parent I’ve ever seen, and I don’t want you to feel down on yourself because of where he lives. This is a great place, he has tons of friends, a solid support system, he can do all kinds of extracurriculars. You do a good job, so much better than most parents. And you’re so involved.”

Dean blushes a little.

“Thanks Cas.”

The silence stretches again, they watch the movie for a little while, but Dean knew that Cas would bring the big it up again, and soon.

“Are you really thinking about that step?”

“I mean, yeah. She’s good for me. She has a steady job, nice house, good kid. Sam and Ben get along great. She’s gorgeous, nice. You know, exactly what everyone wants.”

“Not me.”

“Yeah well, you dye your hair depending on the weather, so forgive me for not thinking you want the apple pie life.”

“And you do?”

“Do what?”

Cas’ eyes are a little harder than normal, Dean was having trouble reading him, which he never did. Ever.

“You want the apple pie life? The desk job, the two kids, the picket fence?”

“Yeah I mean, I finally got a great job that I like. Sammy’s off to college at the end of next year. I’ve got a girlfriend, we’d have the house to ourselves in a couple of years. I don’t know. Yeah. I guess.”

“You’re really making me believe you right now.”

Dean huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes, but he knows that his answers are not satisfactory for Cas.

“I don’t know, Cas. It’s everything I should want, and I do want, I guess. I’ve never been able to think about myself, never been able to worry about what I want, and this is it. Simple, quiet, not having to deal with…family stuff. Like, I’ll still take care of Sam, look out for him, but I’m ready for simple, I guess.”

“And you see that with Lisa?”

“Yeah,” it’s probably the truth. Dean doesn’t really know.

He tries not to think about it, but his anniversary with Lisa is looming closer, and they’re going back to the rocky-ish way they were before he missed their date. A constant fucking seesaw that he can’t seem to get off of.

Cas doesn’t make things easier, he insists on spending all his free time at the apartment, and Dean finds himself more inclined to hang out with his friends and with Sam, playing dumb board games and drinking bad box wine than to spend time with Lisa in cold silence in her big empty house.

He sorta wonders if Cas is doing it on purpose, trying to prove he was happier over the bar than he would be with Lisa. He pushes that thought aside, he wouldn’t do something like that. Probably.

He’s known for a long time that his girlfriend and his best friend…hate each other, let’s be honest. Lisa and Cas had run in completely different circles, only brought together by Dean. They tolerated each other when they had to, but since they had graduated college they had only seen each other at parties. Dean had tried, in the beginning, to try and force them to interact positively, but that was like trying to force two magnets to come together. So he had been living two separate lives, the life with his roommates and Sam and Cas, and his life with Lisa. It had been getting harder to manage, since Lisa was getting closer to a breaking point. He thought for sure the breaking point was when he was late to pick her up for a movie because he and Cas had been dying Cas’ hair bright blue, and he showed up with stained hands and a sheepish grin on his face. Dean could tell it was coming, he just had to hold is breath and wait for it.


	3. Lost In You

That breaking point happens on their anniversary.

Sex with Lisa is easy. She’s hot, like mad hot, and when she’s wet it’s all good, easy sex that gets them both off fast. It’s a wet kinda night, probably because Dean had been teasing her all through dinner, and Ben was off at a friend’s house for the night. It’s their nine year anniversary, they don’t count the “detours” as Lisa calls them. Dean is hard, thrusting up into her, when she says something so out of left field that Dean freezes in place, still inside her.

“You should stop hanging out with Castiel.”

“What? Lis, what? Now, right now?”

“Yeah, I mean, if you and I are taking the next step, with you and Sam moving in, he’s gonna be around a lot less, and I think you should take a break from seeing him.”

“Take- can we not do this right now?”

“What’s wrong with right now?”

“Lis, baby, I’m uh. I’m inside you.”

“I know, but it’s something we should talk about.”

“And I’m all for talking about it, all for that if you wouldn’t mind if we finish first. Kinda hard to concentrate on anything else.”

She bounces a little, indicating she’s ready, and it doesn’t take long but Dean’s release is almost a little tainted, like a bad aftertaste is left in his mouth. Lisa cleans up and comes back to bed and Dean lays there, waiting for the inevitable argument that he can feel is brewing. Lisa lays, splayed across his chest, tracing patterns into his skin and Dean braces for impact.

“I just think,” she whispers, breathing kisses onto his neck, “that it might be good for you two to take a break. You’re always spending all this time together, you know? And I think it’s a little weird.”

What’s weird? Having a friend that he can confide in no matter what? He can feel himself getting angry and he really doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to fight now.

“What’s weird about me and Cas?”

“It’s just,” Lisa is moving to straddle him, fuck, she knows how to get what she wants, “You spend so much time together, it’s a little codependent baby.”

“Codependent? Me and Cas?”

“Yeah,” she leans down to kiss the shell of his ear, “You’re hardly ever apart.”

“That’s not true Lis, I spend tons of time with you and Sam and-”

“I really think you moving in will be so good for us, Dean. We’ll be able to really prepare for when the boys go to college. I know Ben’s a little younger but pretty soon we’ll have the whole place to ourselves, and I just don’t know if, well, when we have kids of our own, Cas just puts out a certain vibe, and I’m not sure I want my kids around that.”

Dean fully stops moving.

“What vibe? What vibe does Cas put out. And taking a break doesn’t mean I’d stop talking to him forever, he’s my best friend.”

“It’s too codependent, Dean. He’s too clingy with you and you’re different when you’re around him. You’re loud and brash and not the Dean that I know. So no, I was thinking more of a permanent distancing. Like, maybe see him on your own once every couple of weeks. Think of it like moving.”

“Like moving.”

“I’m not trying to ruin anything for you-”

“Just trying to dictate who I spend my time with.”

Lisa rolls her eyes and rolls off of Dean. Dean doesn’t miss the contact. 

“Ugh, Dean. Everyone grows apart.”

“But Cas and I aren’t growing apart, you literally want me to stop seeing my best friend because you don’t like the vibe he gives off. And what vibe is that Lisa, you haven’t explained to me what vibe that is.”

Lisa’s arms are crossed, he can tell they’re getting into the meat of the issue. Their voices are rising and the color is rising in her cheeks. They didn’t used to fight like this, and Dean is suddenly hit, like a ton of bricks, how fucking unhappy he is when he’s with her. He always has to walk on eggshells, make sure he doesn’t say the wrong thing. And he knows she feels the same, no matter what they do, they’re always stepping on each other’s toes. How would that work if they decided to move in together? If they got married. He wouldn’t survive this marriage without Cas, and that right there is a big problem.

“He’s not a good influence for children.”

“Because he’s in a band? Or because he dyes his hair? Or maybe the tattoos, the piercings? Are you saying you would be an insulted soccer mom if he showed up to a kid’s birthday party, don’t want to offend Karen and Beverly from the PTA do we?”

“Oh god Dean, I knew that this would turn into a big thing, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Well we’re here now, why don’t we get it all out on the line.”

“I’m not doing this. I can’t do this. This is it.”

Dean waits for the punchline, but Lisa is standing across the bed from him, arms folded, hair flying, hips set.

“What’s it? What am I not getting here?”

“Six years Dean. Six years. That’s how long we’ve been together. And I want that to continue, I want a future with you, I want kids with you, I want to marry you. But I do not want any of those things if he’s a part of your life.”

“If we get married you shouldn’t get to dictate who I see, who my friends are! What if I told you you couldn’t see your sister anymore, or Ben couldn’t see his dad, what the fuck kinda guy would you think I am.”

“I can’t do this, Dean. Your relationship with him is too toxic and too codependent and I won’t be a part of it. So go raise your brother over a bar where they play screamo music until two in the morning, that’s fine.”

“What are you saying?”

Some of the anger seems to leave Lisa, and Dean sees clearly for just a second. They had been pretending for a long time.

“I love you,” she begins, “But if this is the way it’s going to be-”

“You mean constant fighting over literally everything?”

She smiles a little.

“You ever think we kept doing this because it’s all we know?”

Dean sighs heavily, a little relief seeping into his anger.

“Glad I’m not the only one.”

“I don’t think we’ve been very fair to each other.”

“Or to ourselves.”

“Maybe we should call it quits?”

They stare at each other.

“You know, I think this is the first time that we’ve ever done this like adults.”

Lisa smiles wider, and Dean sees the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. He crosses the room in two strides and takes her face in his hands, kissing her forehead.

“That’s growth right there.”

She wraps her arms around him, and they embrace for a while, both sort of breathing in the fact that this really was it, and it wasn’t going to end with screaming or slamming doors. It was going out with a puff of smoke instead of an explosion. Less climactic, but a lot safer.

“So um,” Dean stutters when they split apart, “I’ll see you around.”

Lisa touches his face.

“Don’t be a stranger. Maybe we could try the whole ‘let’s be friends’ thing?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

He closes the front door a few minutes later, carrying everything that he and Sam had kept at the house with him. Walking to his car, the cool night air on his face, he resists the urge to turn around, and instead throws everything on the passenger seat, turns the ignition, and speeds off to Cas’ house immediately.

__________

Dean finds himself at Cas’ door at two thirty in the morning, trying to hide the fact that he’s been crying, not that he can hide that from Cas, that had always been next to impossible. Cas has clearly been asleep, his bright purple hair was sticking straight up in the air, he rubs his eyes, and is in that pair of ratty sweatpants that meant he didn’t give a single fuck how he looked.

“Dean?” his voice is rough with sleep, and he stands aside as Dean walked inside, twisting his hands together. They’re damp and clammy, which Dean has always been self conscious about, but now is no time to be embarrassed.

“Me and Lis broke up.”

Cas stops in the middle of rubbing his eyes, he looks up at Dean, full of concern.

“Oh god, what happened?”

Dean can feel the tears beading at the corners of his eyes. Fuck, he did not want to do this right now, especially not in front of Cas.

“Yeah she, um, she said we spent too much time together. Made her uncomfortable. But like, we didn’t yell or anything. I think it’s really over.”

Cas rolled his eyes and sighed, crossing his too-pretty arms over his bare chest. 

“Fuck that, you and I have been friends for years, long before you met her. What’s there to be jealous about. It’s not like we ever,” Cas clears his throat, for a guy that’s so out there and always so fucking confident he does act like a literal three year old sometimes.

Dean sinks down onto Cas’ bed, head in his hands. He needs to be home, he needs to make sure that Sam gets to school on time and catches that ride with his friend Max after school to go study and make sure he gets a good breakfast. He doesn’t need to be standing in front of Cas crying like a baby at two in the morning. This was asking for trouble. He should go home, he should go home, he should go home.

He starts hyperventilating, dissolving into a full blown panic attack. Cas holds him through the worst of it, telling him quietly to control his breathing. It suddenly hits him what she had been asking of him, the sheer idea of losing Cas sent him into a panic.

“She, uh,” he stutters as Cas approaches him, lifts up his face, wipes away the tears that are running down his face, “she just said it wasn’t healthy, like we were codependent or something.”

Cas moves over to the sink. Dean had always loved his house, a tiny cottage right on the ocean that was painted sky blue with white shutters. It was tiny and yet he still managed to force a piano in the corner where the “dining room” should have been, and it always felt warm even when it was cold outside. Dean had always loved this place. He always loved that you could always hear the ocean, sometimes lapping, sometimes roaring against the sand and the rocks outside.

To calm himself, Dean always liked to count Cas’ tattoos, make sure there wasn’t another one there that he had been missing. Something familiar, because Cas usually told him (or dragged him along to Pamela’s shop because, underneath that punk rock exterior he was a little bit of a baby). Tonight however, he sees with a little bit of surprise, a new piece peaking from the hem of Cas’ sweatpants, so new that it was still raised. As Cas comes back to Dean with a glass of water and a warm washcloth in his hands, Dean gestures to the ink contrasting Cas’ tan skin.

“New one?”

“Yeah,” Cas hands him the glass of water, which Dean drains in about two seconds and kneels between his knees, wiping his face with the washcloth, placing it on the back of his neck, trying to slow Dean’s rapid breathing, “Take a breath, Dean, take a breath.”

“What is it?” Dean pushes, always so good at hiding the way that he felt about things.

Cas knew that. He smiles.

“Some mountains.”

“Just some random mountains? Come on,” he pulls insistently at Cas’ hand, meeting his eyes, “Tell me.”

Cas leans forward and presses his lips into Dean’s hair. It’s a simple gesture, something that they usually don’t do unless the other is really fucked up. So Dean must be really fucked up.

“You remember that trip we all took to the Tetons that summer?”

“Oh yeah, that was great.”

“It’s the Tetons,” Cas pulls down the hip of his sweatpants enough for Dean to trace the raised lines.

“That was a good trip.”

Dean tries to calm himself down with the thought of the mountains, snowcapped even in the middle of summer, the smell of the clear, clean air, the towering trees that surrounded them on all sides, the crystal blue water of the lake they had found on a hike, the exact color of Cas’ eyes. He feels his panic lessen a little more.

“Yeah,” there’s something else in Cas’ face, something that he isn’t saying, and Dean suddenly wished he could read minds, because what if he was thinking the same thing that Dean was- no, he would never think a thing like that.

“Can we-” Dean cuts himself off, looking at the clock. Fuck, it’s nearly three. He tugs on the hem of Cas’ sweatpants anyway.

So he and Cas have an….agreement, that’s probably the best word for it. Something that was started one night in college when they were both totally hammered and more than a little stoned. 

_________

Cas had just broken up with Hannah, the only girl that had kept his attention for longer than a night. He was sad, fucked up really, and had broached the subject in a slurred voice. Running a hand through his neon yellow hair, which was dirty, unkept, still a little sweaty from the shitty club they had been in that night. Charlie and Benny had long gone home, Ellen was watching Sam that night, he and Cas had Cas’ shitty dorm to themselves and were sprawled on the floor, unable to do anything, limbs heavy with the alcohol and the weed and the weight of the night.

Cas pushed himself closer to Dean, landing on his shoulder, breathing into his ear.

“We should fuck.”

He was always so effortlessly comfortable in his sexuality, it made Dean’s whole body blush, but he was high and everything else didn’t seem to really matter. He and Lisa had broken up six months before, and his mind wasn’t as…inhibited as it usually was with the way things were, the way things were supposed to be, and he found himself leaning back into the wall, letting Cas lean onto him, heavy and comforting, the kind of presence you cannot create, something that is formed, that is made. He let out a sigh, trying to ignore the way his body twitched when Cas ran a heavy hand through his hair.

“Will this help you get over her?”

Cas’ eyes had a dark edge as he watched Dean, expecting a hard no and not getting it was turning him on, Dean could see that, inching his way closer to him. Dean could smell the alcohol on Cas’ breath, he really was trashed, Dean wasn’t much better. This wasn’t exactly the time to make decisions like…this.

“Yeah.”

“It can’t…we can’t.”

“Won’t be anything other than…yeah, scout’s honor.”

Dean narrowed his eyes, calling Cas’ bluff.

“You’re not honorable.”

As if in answer to Dean’s question, Cas pushed forward onto his hands and knees, getting in Dean’s space, pressing their lips together, reacting vehemently when Dean sighs into his mouth. Cas tongue is soft and tastes like gin, Dean wrinkles his nose at the taste.

“I know how much you hate gin, if I knew this was happening, I wouldn’t have consumed three gin and tonics.”

“Three huh?” Dean gasped, trying to keep it together as Cas’ rough and calloused hands pushed their way under his t shirt, finding soft skin, flushed and overheated already. Cas merely hummed as he pulled away from Dean’s lips, focusing instead on a pressure point on his neck that he had to know was a weak spot for Dean.

Dean whined loudly as Cas continued his ministrations, lightly ghosting the outline of Dean’s cock through his jeans. Dean wanted him. Fuck, he wanted him. When he kissed him he tasted metal, almost forgetting that Cas had a triple lip piercing in the excitement of the moment.

Dean stripped off his t shirt and nearly yelped as Cas dragged him to his mattress, sitting on a couple of wooden palettes because Cas is an artsy little bitch and doesn’t believe in real beds or something like that. Cas pushed Dean down, he fell into Cas’ mattress, sinking and then springing back, eyes trained on Cas as he crawled up Dean’s body, Dean didn’t feel that drunk anymore when Cas held his gaze, his pupils so dilated Dean could barely see the baby blue of his irises.

“Fuck I’ve wanted this for so long,” he hissed, helping Dean shimmy out of his jeans, which, in Dean’s opinion were far too tight, but Charlie and Cas dictated his style and fashion choices and they said skinny jeans were in and bootcut jeans were for cowboys and people that live south of the Mason-Dixon. But then he wasn’t thinking about his too-tight jeans or how hard they were to get off; he’s only thinking about how fucking hard he was as Cas hovered around his hips, kissing the underside of his thigh as he slid Dean’s boxer-briefs down his legs.

“Pink huh?”

“Charlie-ah-Charlie bought them for me,” Dean felt like his heart was going to give out at any second, and Cas stopped as his hard cock was revealed, a smirk curling around his mouth. He’s…man his best friend was more than kinda hot.

“Something funny?” Dean couldn’t not sass Cas, it’s something that, if he stopped doing, assume that he’d been kidnapped and that his lack of sass was a cry for help okay? But it was hard to sass someone when they had you in the palm of their hand. Literally.

Cas merely responded by biting his lip and staring unashamedly at Dean and, well, Dean.

“Better than I thought.”

“Oh yeah? You spend a lot of time thinking about it?”

“Sure do,” Cas breathed, and didn’t give Dean time to respond before he took him in his mouth and Dean swore he was going to die right there and this must be what it felt like when you drink too many Red Bulls and your heart bursts. He saw it once on Facebook.

It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for him to come, and when he did Cas swallows like he had been doing it all his life, hollowing out his cheeks and Dean shuddered underneath him.

Now. Well, it’s Dean’s turn, and he sure as hell had never had an unsatisfied customer and he wasn’t going to start today. Cas was still mostly clothed, so he decided to remedy that problem first. He nearly ripped Cas’ t shirt when he pulled it off of him and Cas made a vague noise of protest.

“Don’t Dean, that’s one of my favorites.”

Dean didn’t answer, merely put his mouth to the area right above the waistband of Cas’ jeans and Cas moaned loudly into the empty room, the sound echoed off the walls.

“Careful,” Dean chuckled into his skin, “You’ll wake the neighbors.”

“Then don’t tease me and get on with it.”

__________

Born out of one of Cas’ failed relationships, the agreement had been born: if one of them went through a breakup, whether that was with a long-standing friend with benefits or an actual partner, they would take the weekend and fuck, a way to release, to move on without the stress of a unknown hookup. The only rule was that they both had to be single, because cheaters they were not. It worked for them, a surefire way to not catch feelings.

The agreement had been in place since they were twenty-two, now, at nearly thirty-one, it still stood strong. It didn’t happen so much anymore, they were either perpetually single or in a committed relationship, so it was less of an excuse to fuck and more an actual grieving process.

“Remember the agreement,” Cas reminds him, leaning into his touch anyway, “On the weekend. Can you get someone to watch Sam?”

“Yeah, it’s not like he needs watching, he’s pretty much grown but-”

“You’re a mother hen anyway.”

Dean laughs a little at that. It’s true and he knows it.

“Yeah, Charlie’s out of town but Benny should be there, he and his girlfriend can make sure he doesn’t throw some massive party.”

Cas cards his hands idly through Dean’s hair, and Dean wants to pull him onto his lap.

“He’s not exactly the type for that, huh? He’ll probably just study all weekend. We need to get him laid.”

Dean chokes.

“Excuse me, earth to Cas, did you forget he’s my kid brother and he’s seventeen?”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“Seventeen is plenty old enough.”

“For you maybe, not for him. Or me.”

“That’s right, you didn’t lose it until you were nineteen,” Cas laughs a little, “What, you embarrassed that your brother might get some before you did?”

“No…yes…that’s not the point, he’s a kid.”

“Whatever Dean, just clear your schedule this weekend.”

A feeling pools at the base of Dean’s stomach, that longing, that ache for Cas, something that almost made him look forward to the end of a relationship, because it meant that he got to experience a little bit of the thrill that he felt with Cas. He always felt that thrill, but the physical aspect, the way Cas was when they had sex, the way he held Dean, the way he tugged his hair, lefts marks all over him, it almost made Dean want to quit everything and fuck him for a living. Or jump off a cliff, whichever one was closer.

Cas walks him to the door, and, in spite of the agreement that they had just reminded each other of, Dean leans forward to kiss the side of his mouth, warm skin brushing against the cool metal in his lip. He desperately wants to stay the night, and not have to stew in his anger and hurt and terrifying sense of relief that he and Lisa might actually be really over this time, but the agreement had been notarized, so he couldn’t break it now.

“It’s just twenty-four hours, Dean,” Cas breathes, clearly struggling to keep his word as well.

“Twenty-four hours too long,” Dean replies, his hands skimming down Cas’ sides, making him shudder in a delicate way. He can feel that he’s winning the battle, and just as he leans even closer to kiss the shell of Cas’ ear, two hands push him in the chest, breaking their contact. He rolls his eyes.

“You’re a buzzkill.”

“And you have work in like five hours, you can thank me later.”

“Okay mom, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Cas grins at him, slouched in that way that drives Dean crazy and he didn’t know why.

“Goodnight Dean.”

The door shuts quietly behind him, and Dean’s so fucking exhausted by the time he gets home that he collapses, fully clothed, on his bed after plugging in his phone.


	4. Slow Dance

Predictably, the next morning is fucking brutal. Dean is the type of guy who needs at least seven hours of sleep a night. He didn’t used to, but the older he got, the happier he was sleeping the day away. He forces himself out of bed and into his work clothes, banging on Sam’s door as he heads towards the bathroom. He avoids the mirror as he brushes his teeth, washes his face, goes through his morning routine. He tries not to think about the lingering ache from the night before, and the nervousness already building in his chest as he thinks about later today.

He has to physically drag Sam out of bed and toss him on the floor. So it was going to be one of those days.

He almost falls asleep during his lunch break, only to get a text from Cas with some choice words about later that makes him want to full tilt run towards the door and red-line all the way to Cas’ apartment. Sometimes being an adult sucked, especially when you want to get laid but have to do things like “work” and “put food on the table.”

He gets home right on time, intending to spend some quality time with Sam before he left for the weekend, under the pretense of camping so no one got too suspicious.

Benny, Charlie, and Sam are all squished around the dining table when he walks in the door, under the pretense of “helping” Sam with his homework. Dean had the impression that Sam was teaching them more than they were helping him, neither of them were very good at AP Calculus.

“Hey Dean!” Sam grins brightly at him when he steps in the door, “Can you help me with this problem? I’ve been working on it for half an hour and can’t get anywhere.”

“Oh yeah, the engineer is here so you don’t need our help anymore!” Charlie throws up her hands in mock-exasperation, “Amaze us with your knowledge and your college degree!”

“I thought you were going out of town,” Dean pokes her in the ribs and she nearly falls out of her chair in her attempt to dodge him.

“Oof that’s cold Dean,” she wipes fake tears from her eyes as Benny plays the world’s tiniest violin, “Kaia canceled on me, she and Claire are doing some couples thing. Now mush, on with the homework!”

“Okay, let’s take a look here,” Dean plops heavily into one of the rickety, mismatched chairs, and pulls Sam’s book towards him. He and Sam work quietly for a few minutes, with Benny and Charlie scrolling through their phones. Well, now was as good a time as any.

“So, uh, I guess I have something to tell you,” they all look up at his words, half curious, half concerned, “Well, me and Lisa broke up. For real.”

It was a testament to how much they cared about him that they didn’t crack a joke, Cas and Lisa’s distaste for one another had been a running gag for years.

“You okay?”

“I-” he thinks about lying, one way or the other, but if he couldn’t tell them, who could he tell? “Sorta, actually. I mean, I’ll miss her a lot, six years is a long time, but also I feel kinda…relieved? That feels shitty to say.”

“It’s not,” Benny’s watching him, absent-mindedly pulling on the edge of his hat, “If you weren’t happy, it makes sense to feel relieved.”

Dean sits back, trying not to look at Sam. He hated this for Sam, because Lisa was stability, with a nice house and a big yard, Lisa had been a part of his life, in one way or another, for years, and Dean hated change, so he didn’t want things to change for Sam.

There’s a little silence, Dean’s lost in the whirlwind of emotions this whole thing has brought on, when Benny breaks the silence,

“So you really broke up. For real this time?”

“Why does no one believe me about this?” Dean asks the room at large, ignoring Benny’s question.

“Because you guys have broken up like ten times,” Sam pipes up, not even bothering to look up from his Calculus homework. 

“Okay, okay,” Dean tries to quiet the raucous laughter from Charlie and Benny that rose up at Sam’s words, “We did not break up ten times.”

“You broke up at least four for a while, and then the random times you called it quits for like three days.”

“When did you get so observant?”

“I’ve always been this observant, you just don’t notice. Which means you’re unobservant.”

“That’s true, I definitely am.”

“You gonna be okay?” Charlie rubs his shoulders a little on her way to fill up the Hydroflask she proudly flaunted whenever she was on a “health kick” (which meant she ate one vegetable per week and drank water).

“Yeah,” Dean leans into her touch a little, “Gonna go for a drive this weekend, clear my head. Not sure what I’ll get up to.”

“That’s nice,” Benny is leaning all the way back in his chair, so the front two legs are in the air.

“If that’s cool with you, Sammy. I can hang here if you-”

“Nah that’s okay. Benny, we should have that _Rocky_ marathon we’ve been talking about.”

“Hell yeah kid, let’s do it,” Benny’s grin is infectious. Dean breathes an invisible sigh of relief, Sam would be taken care of. He knows he shouldn’t worry, but Cas is right, he’s a mother hen.

Benny and Charlie head to their respective rooms a few minutes later, seeming to understand, almost subconsciously, that he and Sam needed one of those Brotherly Bonding Moments.

“Hey Sammy,” Dean shifts from foot to foot, he hates bringing up emotional shit like this, but he really needed to know, needed Sam to know that he was always there if he needed him.

“Yeah?”

“You, uh, you know you can talk to me about this stuff? Like I know you and Ben are friends, and I don’t want you to think that I did this without thinking about you, you know? Or that anything is different now because me and Lis are broken up. She still cares about you, you know. I just don’t want you to think that your whole life is uprooted now or anything.”

Sam looks up from his book, sprawled out and looking like he was at least ten feet tall. Dean was still sorta pissed he didn’t get the tall genes. It’s not fair.

“Dean, it’s not like we lived there. And Ben’s cool, but I’ll see him at school and stuff. Mostly I just hope you’re happy, you know. It seemed like the most that you and Lisa did was fight anymore, and that isn’t a good way to spend a relationship.”

“What’d you know about relationships?” Dean asks accusingly, kicking Sam’s foot.

“Cas watches _The Bachelor_ , I know.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Those aren’t-”

“But you get what I’m saying. I care that you’re happy, and you didn’t seem that happy.”

Dean breathes out an audible sigh of relief, Sam looks concerned.

“You were really worried about me?”

“What the hell do you mean, of course I was worried about you. That’s my job, I worry about you all the time.”

“Well it’s really okay Dean, like it said, we didn’t live there or anything, thank God.”

Yeah, thank god for sure, Dean thinks privately.

“Okay okay, one more thing,” Dean steels himself, he’s not sure he wants to know the answer to this question, but it’s going to eat at him if he doesn’t ask, “And you have to be honest.”

Sam crosses his heart like they did when he was little.

“Are you okay living here?”

Sam pauses, waiting for Dean to continue.

“Uh yeah, it’s home.”

“But I mean, if I could get us a house, somewhere quieter, maybe with a yard or a park or something. Where it wasn’t so loud, so you wouldn’t have to study with noise canceling headphones or wear them to bed or anything. I don’t know dude, now I have this job I can think about stuff like that. And I know this isn’t really a place you can bring friends over-”

“I bring friends over all the time, I love it here. We have Benny and Charlie, and Ellen and Jo next door, Pam and Ash visit all the time. Cas is right down the block. I can walk to school. Why’re you being so dumb about this?”

“I just, it’s something that I read that said so much noise is bad for a kid and I didn’t want you, you aren’t struggling in school or anything are you.”

Sam sighs, setting down his book.

“No, I’m not, and you’re being weird. Which is probably normal since you just broke up with Lisa, but don’t look for a house or anything. I like it here.”

“Well that’s good, because y’all aren’t going anywhere,” Benny pokes his head around the corner. Eavesdropping prick.

Sam grins at Dean, going back to his homework and pushing his too-long hair out of his eyes.

“Go have a nice weekend, take a load off.”

“Will do,” Dean calls as he throws some things into a duffel bag, including a few things he’d usually take camping, because, you know, he’s a stealth master.

He waves goodbye to them, and plays it cool, only going twenty over the speed limit to get to Cas’ place and park in in the empty garage behind his house that he never used. An unspoken place for the Impala.

“You talk to Sam?” Cas asks the second that Dean walks into his house, setting down his bag by the door and toeing off his shoes. The TV is on playing Dean’s favorite shitty TV show, and Cas is walking towards him with his favorite beer. He’s fucking lucky to have Cas sometimes.

“Yeah,” Dean huffs, gratefully accepting the beer that Cas hands him, “I was overreacting.”

“Wow, you? I never would’ve thought, you’re usually so level-headed.”

“Ha ha, yuck it up,” Dean throws himself on Cas’ couch, throwing his flannel in the general direction of Cas’ bed.

“Make yourself at home,” Cas deadpans, settling next to Dean. It’s just then that Dean realizes that Cas is dressed in nothing but his boxer briefs, and he gets that telltale ache, the ache that had been growing from the second that he left Lisa’s house. This is normal and healthy right? Perfectly sane thing to feel when you end a long-term relationship on very bad terms, to want to fuck your best friend immediately. Dean pushes the thought from his mind.

“I’m disappointed,” Dean gestures to Cas, who is a fucking specimen as usual, “No lingerie?”

“If you were kinkier I might,” Cas teases, sliding his hand lightly up Dean’s arm, making him shiver.

“You don’t know if I’m kinky or not.”

“That’s true,” Cas takes a sip of beer, reclining on the couch and looking Dean up and down, “You and I always have such vanilla sex, it’s a little disappointing really, I never have sex this boring.”

“So sorry to bore you,” Dean punches Cas’ bare shoulder, trying to ignore the blush creeping up his neck.

“You’re the only person I would tolerate vanilla sex from, Dean, but by all means if you want to get kinky I can get kinky.”

Dean decides to deflect, seems easier than the alternative of being honest.

“You’re probably into really weird shit, no thanks.”

Cas laughs, one of those full-throated laughs that brings a laugh out of Dean. Infectious, contagious, just like Cas himself. Cas runs a hand through his hair and lightly tugs on his stretched ears, giving them “movement” as he once told Dean. He almost looks a little embarrassed, but Dean has to be imagining that, Cas doesn’t get embarrassed. Ever.

“What’re you into then, Dean, what’s kinky for you?”

Dean considers him for a second, he’s never really thought about it. He and Lisa weren’t really vanilla, but they had never really delved into the shit that he knew Cas was into. 

“I don’t know, choking maybe?”

“Choke me daddy,” Cas grins, and Dean throws a pillow at him, “Who’s doing the choking?”

“I uh, I don’t know,” Dean rubs the back of his neck. Okay, he’s definitely embarrassed now. His face is definitely red and he looks like a total idiot, “What’re you into? Piss play?”

“Fuck no, Dean,” Cas rolls his eyes, “who the fuck do you think I am?”

“I don’t know what you’re into, you just talk all the time about how fucking kinky you are. And I’ve never seen it, and you and I have fucked a few times.”

“Seven,” Cas says immediately, and then turns red.

“Five what?”

“We’ve fucked seven times.”

“That so,” Dean can feel his mouth curling, he feels a little feral and Cas’ eyes darken as they look at each other, “Should we make it eight?”

“You’ve got me hard already, Winchester,” he gestures down to his briefs, which are clearly straining, and Dean is nearly salivating. Fuck he wants that cock in his mouth. 

“Look at you, already so desperate for it,” Cas’ voice is deeper, still teasing, but with an edge to it that makes all the blood rush out of Dean’s head and into…elsewhere.

“Fuck yeah I am,” Dean whispers, his voice jagged and rough, like if he didn’t get it he would starve.

“What do you want?” Cas positively coos, running a hand through Dean’s hair, “You want me? or you wanna do me first?”

“I wanna,” Dean breathes, trying to find his words, “I wanna suck you off.”

“Mhm,” Cas moans gently, sliding off his briefs in one fluid motion. Dean can’t take his eyes off his cock, “Here you go, have at it.”

Dean goes down on him like the champ he is. He knows he’s good at giving head. He knows he’s really good at giving head, especially since Cas, who had proclaimed loudly at Dean’s twenty-second birthday party that he could never get off with just a blowjob was coming in Dean’s mouth in less than three minutes. Dean swallows, which had shocked Cas the first time he had blown him.

“Just because I’m straight doesn’t mean I can’t give good head,” Dean had said, and Cas had laughed in a telltale way, a way that said he had something else to say, but he wouldn’t say it, not in front of Dean’s face anyway, no matter how hard Dean pushed on the subject.

“Fuck you’re good,” Cas heaves Dean up to kiss him, and then guides Dean to the bed with almost embarrassing ease, undoing his belt one-handed as he did so, Dean stripping off his shirt.

“You bring condoms?” Cas breathes as Dean leaves a stinging mark on his collarbone.

“Why do I have to bring the condoms,” Dean whines and Cas stares at him, pausing from his ministrations and causing Dean to immediately whine and writhe under him.

“Maybe because you just purchased 1.2 million condoms three days before you broke up with your girlfriend? Also mine aren’t big enough for you and we can’t bareback.”

“Oh, tell me more about how your dick is smaller than mine,” Dean reclines back, ignoring the blow to his stomach Cas lands on him, “They’re in my bag.”

Cas stands and heads over to Dean’s bag, rifling through a little too long.

“Um sir, can you hurry up? I’m hard and horny over here.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Cas waves him off with a tattooed hand, “I’m looking for the sex toys. You didn’t bring any plugs, I’m disappointed in you.”

Dean splutters, always caught off guard by how easily Cas talked about sex. It had taken then three go rounds before Dean could fuck him sober, and he didn’t think that Cas ever forgot that, so he always made sure that they fucked sober now. And man, it would be a crime to be so drunk that he forgot the little details of fucking Cas. Cas’ freckles that Dean would trace the lines between with his tongue, the way he growled and fisted his hands in Dean’s hair when Dean reached a particular spot (the underside of his left knee, the shell of his ear, the joinder of his neck and his collarbone) the way he moaned Dean’s name.

There’s something exciting, almost forbidden about what they do, no one else knows about it. Sure, they think they probably suspect, Dean acts like he’s walking on air after a breakup, which isn’t exactly normal. But it worked for them, the perfect way to get over a breakup without the worry of a one night stand. No need to worry about catching feelings for a rebound when the rebound was your best friend. It was foolproof. And then Cas moaned his name and Dean forgot all about their agreement, simply on a mission to make Cas do that again, because if there was a single way to make him hard it, was the way Cas’ voice, all breathy and ethereal, would moan his name when Dean was inside him, or when he was inside Dean, but that was one of those things that was rare, and had only happened after he and Cas had had four tequila shots apiece. But fuck he wouldn’t mind having it again sober. He had tried to convince Lisa to do it once, like use one of her dildos to fuck him in the ass, but she had looked at him with sheer disgust and a little bit of mirth and said,

“You’re joking right, we aren’t doing that. Where’d you even get the idea for that.”

And it’s not like he could admit what happened, they kept the secret, it was part of the agreement, which was, in fact, written out, a document that they had gotten notarized a bank after the first time, much to the bank teller’s shock and horror when she read the first paragraph.

They had fucked four times after they had it signed, like a blood pact, but with jizz. More romantic that way, you know?

“Dean, fuck me, fuck me fuck me fuck me.”

“Cas,” Dean breathes, pulling on his hair, wanting him as close as possible.

His heart was going to burst out of his chest. He was going to die. Cas was fucking everywhere, all over the place, exactly in all the right places, a puzzle piece that Dean couldn’t live without, and he comes hard with Cas’ name on his lips, Cas matching him with his own name and his own climax.

They lie together for a while after that, Cas traces the lies of the veins in his arms, then the constellations of the freckles on his stomach, and Dean drifts to sleep with Cas curled up next to him, his arm around Cas, Cas’ arms around his waist.

Dean dreams in bright colors that night, bright colors that change like the notes of a song, but the color he always comes back to is blue, and if the color matches the exact shade of blue of Cas’ eyes, no one needs to know about that.


	5. Fully Alive

They spend most of the rest of the weekend in bed, lounging around between rounds, Cas insisting on playing this dumb game on his phone where you matched colored blocks and made bombs go off or something. Dean had never been into those games (except _Candy Crush_ ), he was a man of culture that enjoyed _Stardew Valley_ and not much else. They do spend a good amount of time sitting in the rocking chairs on Cas’ porch, taking in the sea breeze as Cas scribbled in his notebook, humming to himself and tapping his long fingers against the arms of his chair, while Dean simply listened to the ocean and watched the boats pass by, counting the different kinds of birds he could see in the sky, occasionally walking into the water to collect some shells. It was late summer, so he took advantage of the weather while he could. The only disadvantage to living here? Eight months of fucking cold.

Saturday night found Dean in the kitchen a pair of Cas’ boxers, singing and dancing around with a spatula in his hand. Cas was laser-focused on his phone, intent on beating level ten million and three of his stupid phone game.

“You know,” Dean calls over, still swaying to the pop music that Cas had put on, “for a guy that’s in a screamo punk band, you’re really into top 40 music.”

“You know me, I’m into all kinds of music. Remember that one time we put my music on shuffle and tried to count the genres?”

“Damn I forgot about that,” Dean tastes the sauce he’s simmering. This alfredo lasagna is gonna be bomb, he can already tell. He’s focused on the food, making sure the pasta is cooked just right, getting the chicken and the sauce ready, preheating the over, that he doesn’t hear Cas set down his phone with a soft thud on the floor and pad over to Dean, wrapping his arms around his stomach, his chin settling on his shoulder.

“Can I help you?” Dean asks, leaning back into Cas.

“Yeah, let me taste that sauce, it looks good.”

“Of course it’s good, the chef made it.”

“Okay chef, well give it here.”

Dean holds the spatula over his shoulder.

“Careful it’s hot.”

“Mhm, you are.”

“Don’t be flirty with me, there’s hot oil around here.”

“Kinky.”

Dean scoffs and takes the spatula away, Cas tightens his arms a little.

“That is really good,” he presses a kiss into Dean’s shoulder and then plops down on the couch, looking for something on the TV. Dean misses his weight the second it’s gone, and the intimacy of what’s happening, though it’s happened a thousand times over the last decade, is never lost on him. Part of his brain, the brain that would only come alive when he had had too much whiskey, would lament that he didn’t have this kind of easy intimacy with Lisa, or any of his girlfriends. They always felt more like work and less like anything else. Which is how they’re supposed to be, there were no expectations with Cas, which was great because they were best friends, and there are expectations with relationships, real ones, that’s what he has to keep reminding himself of.

Dean slides the lasagna, his masterpiece, into the oven and then vaults over Cas’ couch next to him, pausing the music on his phone as he settles in between Cas’ legs with ease.

“What’re we watching?”

“I don’t know. You have any ideas? Not a cooking show, I’m too hungry.”

“Patience, good food is coming your way.”

Cas makes an impatient noise and Dean laughs, taking the remote out of his hands and turning on some shitty rom com that he definitely does not like and enjoy because he’s way too manly for that. Okay, he’s not, but don’t tell anyone that.

He and Cas don’t really watch the movie. Cas starts by tracing the lines of Dean’s muscles in his forearm. Cas had always said Dean’s forearms turned him on, even before the agreement, so Dean was always happy to give him unfettered access. So he liked the attention, sue him. The light touches turned into a shoulder massage turned into neck kisses turned into Dean flipping around and kissing him deeply which turned into heavy panting and pawing at each other through clothes. Cas, for some stupid reason, had decided to put on sweatpants, and Dean was just in the process of working them off while biting at Cas’ collarbone when the oven timer went off. He rolls off of Cas immediately.

“Okay what the fuck-” Cas starts indignantly as Dean marches over to the oven to check on the lasagna.

“Cooking is a science Cas, you’re not going to ruin my masterpiece.”

“And you’re not going to give me blue balls,” Cas said petulantly, folding his arms and staring daggers at Dean as he tested the temperature.

“Fuck yeah, she’s done,” Dean announces proudly, leaving the lasagna to cool on the stove top, “Now, where were we?”

Cas raises an eyebrow.

“I thought we were more worried about your masterpiece.”

“Needs to cool,” Dean is back in front of Cas, sinking to his knees and pulling Cas’ sweatpants off in one fluid motion.

“It’s gonna be cold. Fuck Dean,” Cas hisses as Dean kisses his hipbones, which are now exposed to the open air.

“This won’t take long,” Dean grins, letting his breath ghost across Cas’ hard cock, smiling wider as Cas twitches and whines.

“You talk a big game,” Cas gasps, trying his best to keep up the sass, but he’s quickly unraveling in Dean’s hands. Just like always.

“I sure do, let me put my money where my mouth is,” Dean takes Cas in his mouth in a fluid motion, and it takes less than four minutes before Cas is coming in his mouth again, moaning Dean’s name in a way that would make literally anyone come apart at the seams. It was always that way with Cas. Always that way.

“Told you,” Dean winks at Cas, getting of his knees and offering a hand for Cas to get up, but Cas waves him away, still effectively boneless. Dean grins, he’s good at that and he knows it, and he knows it drives Cas crazy.

“Do you want dinner or not? You were just complaining that you were hungry, come get some of this.”

“I was just complaining that I was hungry and then you sucked the life out of me. I swear you were a porn star in a former life, it should be illegal to give head that good.”

“What can I say? I’m a master of my craft.”

Dean dodges the slap that’s aimed at his head, and splashes Cas with some water from the sink.

“You think that blowjob was good? Wait until you have this lasagna.”

Cas laughs that full laugh that Dean loves so much, that Dean was the only one that could get that kind of laugh from Cas. He goes to get plates, but Dean splashes him again.

“Wash your hands you filthy animal.”

The rest of the evening is peaceful, and Cas sings Dean’s praises for the lasagna, and then falls asleep on his shoulder halfway through a terrible movie they had both seen a hundred times. Dean watches it on mute, not daring to move too much, because he really loved the way it felt when Cas fell asleep on him, like a sort of natural progression. Cas looked peaceful when he was asleep, not full of the intense energy he usually had when he was awake. Cas always needed to be doing something, creating something. That was usually music, but when that muse was quiet, he would usually call Dean or show up at his door with bottles of hair dye and a pleading look. That would, of course, cause Dean and Cas to sit in either one of their bathtubs in their underwear, covered in hair dye and laughing their asses off at being covered in hair dye. But when Cas slept, his face didn’t hold the lines of worry, his forehead was smooth, his hair was in his face, his mouth was slack, and Dean couldn’t help but reach out and trace his lips, fingers bumping over the ridges of his piercings. Cas was one of the prettiest people Dean had ever seen, and it took him a while to reconcile that since Cas was, you know, a man. But being friends with Cas and Charlie had taught Dean a lot about what the real world was like, so he had been okay with finding Cas pretty. And if he was the best fuck Dean had ever had in his life, well, no one else needed to know that, did they?

Cas stretches and groans at around midnight, looking up at Dean with bleary, sleepy eyes.

“You watching TV on mute?”

“Yeah, not like we haven’t seen this before, and subtitles are on, so it’s fine.”

Cas smiles softly and presses himself into Dean’s chest. Dean hopes that he can’t his heart speed up. He probably does.

“Come to bed?”

“Yeah,” Dean whispers, and he’s not sure why his voice is so gravelly because they’ve been having sex all weekend, he doesn’t know why this feels different, like maybe there’s something else there? Don’t be dumb, Dean. Don’t be dumb, remember the agreement.

They brush their teeth next to each other at Cas’ bathroom sink, standing shoulder to shoulder, Dean using the designated toothbrush he has at Cas apartment, and Cas does his nightly skincare routine while Dean heads toward the bed. He debates whether or not to leave his boxers on, and then decides against it, it’s not like it’s anything Cas hasn’t seen before. He’s scrolling through his phone when Cas comes out of the bathroom, and he stops Dean in his tracks when he sees Dean, eyes wide.

“What?” Dean asks, looking up from Instagram when he catches Cas’ eye, “What’s the face?”

“Nothing,” Cas shrugs, sliding his sweatpants and underwear off as well and sliding into bed next to Dean, “You’re just hot.”

Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes, scrolling through Instagram again, only putting it away when he notices that Cas is leaning on his elbow, staring at him.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Are you suggesting we swap nudes? I’ve been trying to convince you to do that for years.”

“What do you want a nude of me for anyway,” Dean sets his phone down, plugging it into the charger by his side of the bed, twisting around to look at Cas.

“So I can jerk off to a picture instead of just the thought of you,” Cas is matter of fact, like he always is, and Dean nearly chokes on air. You’d think, after nearly a decade, he would get used to Cas’ way of talking about sex, but he never has, it always managed to catch him off guard.

“Jesus Cas,” Dean coughs, choking on his own spit.

“I have no idea why you’re surprised,” Cas slides closer to Dean, running a hand through Dean’s hair, “You’re unfairly good looking really.”

“Whatever.”

“You make me hard every time I see you.”

Dean laughs.

“Well I know that’s bullshit, we see each other a lot, your dick would be exhausted if that was the case.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, but bridges the gap between them and gently kisses him.

Kissing Cas is one of his favorite post-breakup activities. That and fucking Cas. And sucking Cas’ dick and…well, you get the picture. Cas has this full, plush mouth, something that all the celebrities paid hundreds of dollars to get, and it was Cas’ by design, and he tasted sweet when they kissed, no matter what he had been eating. Cas was always the one to start the process, pulling Dean forward for the first time and the last, always taking the initiative when Dean was too afraid to, even when it was just the two of them in his studio. And then they were off to the races, Dean pulling Cas’ hair, Cas leaving marks down the side of Dean’s neck, down his chest, a thousand tiny marks that didn’t fade for days and made Dean think of Cas and the cheap shampoo he uses every time he looked at them.

Cas tongue is in his mouth, and Dean had always though French kissing was weird, but it didn’t feel weird with Cas. Nothing ever really felt weird with Cas, which is probably why everything just felt like it came naturally with him, because it did. Cas is inching his way closer, so their chests are pressed flush together and Dean sighs into his mouth, like he can’t ever get enough of him.

“Ah Dean, like that,” Cas sighs as Dean bites at his vibrating throat, he’s stunningly beautiful like this, Dean can’t ever get over how fucking good he is, how hard he gets when he’s with Cas, how much he loves fucking Cas.

Cock to cock is so good, it’s so fucking good, that Dean is seeing stars within two minutes. It’s ridiculous, he was gonna come in a minute and a half like a virgin teenager, and he and Cas had been sleeping together for literal years. He’s honestly disappointed in himself a little, but then Cas has taken control and he doesn’t really think about anything anymore, he doesn’t think about anything but Cas being on him, Cas fucking him.

After, they breathe hard, in tandem for several minutes, the only sound the drip of the leaky faucet in Cas’ bathroom Dean’s been meaning to fix and the music of the waves just feet from Cas’ porch. Cas adjusts to get out of the wet spot, slinging himself over Dean, and with Cas’ weight heavy on his chest, their chests pressed together and Cas’ neon hair tickling his neck, Dean is lulled to sleep with the lullaby of tracing the ink that adorns Cas’ skin, patterns and divets of birthmarks and freckles and tattoos that Dean knows almost as well as he knows his own.

__________

“I thought you had work today,” Dean is still sprawled in Cas’ bed at noon the next day, watching at a thoroughly bed-headed Cas is making them breakfast and half-watching the episode of House Hunters that’s playing on TV.

“We don’t have any deadlines next week so I’m taking a break from the grueling work of graphic design.”

“Aw.”

Cas rolls his eyes and lobs a piping hot half of a bagel at Dean’s head. His aim has always been deadly.

“You’ve disfigured me.”

“Good, you know how good-looking you are, a little disfigurement wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You would’ve regretted it if you disfigured me, I would’ve brought it up fifteen times a day for the rest of your life, _and_ haunted you after I died.”

Cas laughs, motioning for Dean to drag his sorry ass out of bed and eat his breakfast.

“What? No breakfast in bed?”

“No, you aren’t getting any crumbs in my bed.”

“All we’ve done all weekend is fuck, you’re telling me you won’t be cleaning your sheets?”

Cas rolls his eyes, already snarfing down his breakfast.

“That’s not it at all, it’s the principle of the thing. If I let you eat in the bed once, you’ll insist on doing it all the time.”

“You’re being sassy this morning.”

“I’m always this sassy, I was just being sweet to you this weekend because I wanted to get laid.”

“You didn’t have to be sweet to me for that.”

Cas holds his mouth like he wants to say something, but seems to visibly swallow his own words with a mouthful of eggs and sausage.

Dean ends up leaving Cas’ place not long after breakfast (long enough for them to fuck one last time on Cas’ crumb-free bed, don’t worry). He picks up his bag and gives Cas a long, slow kiss, trying to savor the moment, because he didn’t know when he was going to get it again.

“I’ll come by after a while, I haven’t seen the gang in too long.”

“Okay,” Dean kisses him again, and it takes him another twenty minutes to walk out the door.

On the drive back across town, Dean takes some time to reflect. Realistically, he and Cas couldn’t keep this up. Dean would meet a girl, Cas would meet…someone, and they would each get married, settle down. Dean would have kids, Cas wouldn’t. Dean would have a picket fence and a house in a suburb, Cas wouldn’t. They couldn’t keep up with the agreement, which was created in a time when they were young and stupid. They were adults now, real grownups with real jobs, they couldn’t be sneaking around their friends and family and pretending like this didn’t mean anything. Plus, Dean was straight. He had only ever been into women and that was that.

He shakes his head as he pulls into the garage next to Ellen’s. He wasn’t going to let his dumb anxiety brain ruin the weekend. He wanted to live in the happy little bubble that he and Cas had created at his little house on the beach for at least a little while longer.

“Where were you all weekend?” Charlie asks as soon as Dean steps in the door after work, “the place was so quiet without you.”

“Aw C, you missed me huh?”

“Shut up,” Charlie throws her book at him. It misses by three nautical miles and Dean laughs at her as he retrieves it from across the room and hands it back to her.

“I was with Cas most of the weekend, we just hung out.”

It’s a testament to the power of Dean and Cas’ friendship that Charlie doesn’t bat an eye at this, doesn’t ask any questions, simply nods and goes back to her book, asking if Dean is going to make dinner.

Sam bounds in the room the second he hears the front door close, babbling loudly a foot from Dean’s face about his weekend. Damn, Dean loves him so much.

“Dean! You’ll never guess what happened this weekend! Me and Travis went to this birthday party at a friend’s house and I met this really cool girl and I think we may have a date this weekend.”

“Sam that’s amazing!” Charlie exclaims, getting up to hug Sam as Dean and Benny slap him on the back.

“What’s the party?” comes Cas’ voice from the doorway, and Dean definitely doesn’t immediately turn bright red at the sound of his voice and doesn’t immediately think of the way Cas had kissed him goodbye and doesn’t think of the hickies hidden down his chest and hips.

“Do you ever get tired of each other?” Charlie asks, and Dean does his best to hide the blush that immediately heats his ears.

“I’m not here for him, I wanted to see you.”

Charlie sticks her tongue out at Dean, and no one seems to notice that Cas’ hands linger around Dean’s hips when he slides past him to join the group on the couch, all loudly asking Sam about his date with a girl named Jessica, who went to school in the next town over.

“I’m just expected to slave over dinner?” Dean clears his throat loudly.

“I guess not, we can order Thai.”

“Oh hell yeah,” Benny slings himself back to reach for his phone on their little table, immediately beginning their order, “Everyone want their usual?”

They pig out on Thai food, playing a too-long game of Monopoly because Charlie loves to put their relationship to the test every chance she can. Sam wins, because of course he does, and bankrupts Dean first when he hits Boardwalk with Sam’s three hotels.

“I will literally trade you something in real life,” Dean pleads with him, trying the puppy-dog eye thing that Sam always uses on him, “Sam, I need to bankrupt Charlie. I need it.”

“Why me?” Charlie shouts indignantly across the table.

“Because once I have all the railroads and utilities it’s over for you bitches, I can’t be taken out of the game in my prime!”

“Fine, what’ll you give me?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think you’d entertain it, what do you want?”

Sam considers him, and Dean is suddenly hit with the realization that he really did promise him anything. Shit.

“I want the Xbox in my room for a month.”

“Ooooooooooo,” Benny, Cas, and Charlie chorus.

“Sam, a month? That’s brutal.”

“How much is living through this round of Monopoly worth to you?” Sam’s head is cocked to the side, an innocent look on his face, completely at odds with the insidiousness of his words.

“Two weeks.”

Cas stares at him.

“You’re considering it? You’re considering losing the Xbox you have in your room to Sam to keep playing Monopoly?”

Dean grits his teeth.

“Charlie can’t take my railroads.”

“You are a child.”

“Two weeks, Sam.”

Sam watches him, gauging his seriousness. He sticks out his hand.

“Done,” he grins, standing up immediately, “and I’m collecting now.”

“You’re finishing this game!” Benny calls after him, “We have an alliance!”

Sam passes by them around ten seconds later, Dean’s Xbox in his arms, grinning like the little shit that he is.

“I should go,” Cas yawns loudly when they call the game for the night, Sam having cleared them all out and gone to bed laughing, Dean’s words of not staying up too late ringing hollowly in his own ears.

“You can stay if you want, I can drop you at your place tomorrow morning.”

Cas glances around the room, checking if they were really alone,

“Is that, you know, okay?”

“Yeah man, it’s fine, how many times have we slept in the same bed and didn’t, yeah. Yeah, it’s fine.”

Cas grins at him, raising his eyebrows.

“If you can keep your hands off me.”

Dean crosses his heart.

“Scout’s honor. Asshole.”

Cas ends up splayed across Dean in the morning, and Dean pressed his nose into his hair, smelling the cheap shampoo and faint smell of bad cigarettes that he hates. He forces himself to get out of bed and accept that things had to go back to normal, that the weekend was just part of the agreement, that it couldn’t be anything more. Not that Cas would want anything more with him.


	6. Unbreakable Heart

Dean does his best to go back to normal. Life without Lisa is a little less empty than he imagined it would have been, which probably wasn’t a great sign for how their relationship had deteriorated before the breakup. Cas, Charlie, and Benny still practice loudly on Thursdays. Sam has his date with Jessica, and then another one two weeks later. He really seems to like her, it makes Dean swell up like a balloon with excitement.

The weather starts to turn a little colder, the leaves start to change, and Cas dyes the top of his hair orange to celebrate fall and Halloween.

He finds himself feeling it a little harder to shake the weekend after the breakup off than normal. When they were in college, it had been easy to just go back to normal, to push whatever feelings may have arisen back into the little box he kept them in, somewhere in his body that was far away from his heart or brain or cock, maybe like his big toe or something. But this feels different, maybe since it had been so long since the last time (three years since he had dumped Lisa over a forgotten birthday and spend three full days in bed with Cas, leaving only to fuck in the tub). He feels himself drawn to Cas now, more aware of when they were close to each other, more aware of the electricity on the surface of each other’s skin, crackling at the slightest touch. He does his best to force it into the little box, but every time he meets Cas’ eyes a little part of how much he just feels about Cas slips out.

Cas knows something’s up, he can always tell when Dean is off. But what the hell is he supposed to say? That he thinks he might be catching feelings for him? There are several problems with that theory: one, Dean is straight, two, the whole point of the agreement was to not catch feelings, three, they’re best friends, and Dean wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that, and four, he’s not catching feelings for Cas, that would be so dumb. Plus, refer to point one. He’s straight.

About two months after Dean and Lisa’s breakup, Cas drags Dean to a dive bar in New Haven, a little out of the way of the main strip. He had given up trying to figure out what Dean’s funk was about, which was good, because Dean didn’t understand what his funk was about either. The place was still decently crowded, but populated more by people that looked a lot like Cas. Dyed hair, piercings, tattoos, doc martens, the whole nine. The place is a serious hole in the wall, it smells like the cigarettes that Dean is always trying to get Cas to quit and like cheap, stale beer. The walls are covered in photos of famous punk bands on the stage, clearly right when they were starting out. Dean catches the Ramones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the low light, tinged with neon, before Cas pulls him toward the bar and orders two shitty beers for them.

“Where are we right now? This place looks like it could be from the 80s.”

“The ideal time for punk rock,” Cas grins, his eyes sweeping around the room, checking for acquaintances and friends. Cas was friends with everyone, it came to him as easy as drawing breath. Where Dean struggled to find things to say when he met someone new, Cas was across the room, entertaining them with a story he had told a thousand times and when Dean inevitably heard it later in the evening, he laughed too, never getting tired of the vigor, the life, the vibrancy that radiated from Cas, the way he could light up a room with his smile and his crazy hair, a beacon that Dean always went looking for.

“Dean, are you still with me?” Cas’ voice comes from his shoulder and Dean shakes his head, pulling himself out of his thoughts. Cas is staring at him, one eyebrow raised, beer halfway to his mouth.

“What?”

“Are you having a stroke? I asked if I told you who we’re seeing.”

“Huh, no. No you didn’t.”

Cas grins at him again, a little mischief in his eyes. Dean’s ready to play, more than ready really.

“They’re a little bit older, got their peak in the nineties maybe? The lead guy, Crowley, he’s a friend of mine. I think you’ll like their vibe, it’s a little less screamo and a little more hard rock.”

“I’m ready.”

Dean does like the music, once it starts, the crowd ebbs and flows with the beat like it’s one alive thing, and Dean knows his ears will be ringing for the next week, but the level of the music is good, it’s one of those vibrations that only good concerts can have, the vibration that matches a heartbeat almost. Dean doesn’t watch Cas if he can help it, but he can tell he’s loudly singing exactly on key. It feels like a normal evening for once, and he’s grateful for that. He hasn’t had one of those in a while.

Between sets, Cas keeps looking around, like he’s looking for someone.

“Are you trying to ditch me?” Dean asks in his ear, and Cas’ laugh vibrates through his chest as he leans back into Dean.

“No, I’m trying to be your wingman.”

“My wingman? What for?”

“Are you seriously okay? I told you we were going to get you laid this weekend, or did you forget?”

Dean’s stomach drops to his shoes. It’s not like he thought, he definitely didn’t think that Cas meant. Fuck, it doesn’t matter.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, I forgot.”

Cas eyes him a little suspiciously, but continues his sweep and hones in on a pretty blond standing across the room, who Dean had noticed ten minutes before because she kept eyeing him. He was oblivious, but not that oblivious, you know?

“What about that one? She’s pretty.”

Dean looks at the floor, he’s so fucking stupid.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You want me to find someone that’s into what you are? You gotta help me out man.”

Dean doesn’t answer reflexively, because at this point he was liable to say something really stupid and not be able to talk his way out of it. He takes his time, thinking that he might as well take the blond girl home, she’s pretty and clearly into him. He doesn’t look back at Cas, just mutters,

“Nah, she’s hot.”

“You’re picky tonight, you sound so enthused.”

“Let’s see if your wingman skills are up to par,” he ignores the weird pain in his chest when he says that, what is happening to him?

Cas brings the girl over in less than five minutes. Dean could tell the girl didn’t need a lot of persuading. Her name is Amber and she’s a nursing student at the local college. She talks his ear off the rest of the evening, not needing much to keep going, and Cas keeps his distance, eventually disappearing entirely after his friend’s set was over, right as Amber bats her eyelashes and asks if he has any plans for the night.

“Uh,” he checks his phone, reading the message from Cas that was lighting up his screen. _Have fun, see you tomorrow._ His stomach clenches uncomfortably, but he puts on a killer smile, and leads Amber out to the Impala, where he goes to her house and fucks her until he stops thinking about Cas’ smile and why he couldn’t get it out of his head.

He feels like shit when he sneaks out of there the next morning, and not because he was hungover. He hadn’t had a hookup like that in years, and he was starting to think he was getting a little too old for the whole thing.

He decides to just drive home, knowing that Cas could bum a ride out of anyone if he needed one, plus he had no idea where he was anyway. The last he had heard from him was a drunken voice memo at three am telling Dean that they needed to try to make jello shots at home sometime.

He finds Charlie and Benny sitting at the kitchen table, with her blessedly strong coffee waiting for Dean in the coffee pot.

Charlie is picking at a guitar, letting the notes hang in the air, and she stares at Dean upside down, grinning.

“You have fun last night?” Charlie asks, pointing at the hickies that cover Dean’s neck.

Dean doesn’t answer, just sets his bag down, looking around for Sam, remembering halfway through that he and his friend Travis were having a sleepover this weekend.

“Is subtlety ever going to be your thing?” Benny asks, reading a magazine with his feet propped up on the table.

“Probably not, not when I have two loudmouths like you for friends.”

“Was she good at least?” Charlie asks, ignoring Dean’s jab.

“It was fine, good, whatever.”

“You’re grumpy this morning,” Charlie frowns, clearly upset that Dean had burst their peaceful morning bubble.

“I haven’t had my coffee,” Dean drains his mug as if to prove of point, and he sorta thinks he can feel his throat blistering.

“It’s okay man, everyone has bad sex every once in a while,” Benny looks sympathetic, which, though he has good intentions, doesn’t make Dean feel much better, mostly because it wasn’t true. It had been fine, good really, but not nearly anything like what he and Cas had had two months ago. And it honestly pissed him off that he was still thinking about it, because he never had before and nothing had really changed and he felt stupid.

He says none of this of course, but sits down at the table with a heavy sigh and puts his feet up on his designated “feet chair” because Charlie was constantly disgusted by his need to put his feet on the table and had, last Christmas, had bought him a little chair to put his feet on. Benny gets away with it for some reason, and Dean is just about to lament the double standard when Charlie distracts him.

“You smell gross,” Charlie leans away from him, “Where did Cas take you last night?”

“Some place I hadn’t been in New Haven, very Cas.”

“Did you meet Crowley?” Charlie asks excitedly, “He’s so cool.”

“I didn’t, Cas played wingman and then ditched me.”

Benny and Charlie roll their eyes, and Charlie plays “My Heart Will Go On” on the guitar.

“I think you’ll survive without him for one single night,” Charlie grins as she continues playing, “Anyway we’re going downstairs tonight, you in?”

Dean considers them, he hasn’t had a night out that wasn’t constantly plagued by the thoughts of _why was he feeling the way that he was_ , and Ellen’s was loud and homey and comfortable and maybe would snap him back into some semblance of normalcy.

“Hell yeah,” he grins as they both cheer, and knocks Benny on the shoulder as he picks himself up and heads for the blessedly warm shower.

He doesn’t hear from Cas all day besides a text to their group chat letting them all know he’d be in New Haven for the rest of the weekend. It sorta relieves an unknown pressure. Not that he doesn’t want to see Cas, he always wanted to hang out with Cas, but him ditching Dean at the bar still sorta rubbed him the wrong way, and he didn’t want to spend his weekend pretending not to be pissy about it to keep the peace.

He, Benny, and Charlie spend the whole day together, sprawled around the couch watching terrible horror movies and making fun of Benny when he jumped at the jumpscares anyway.

They all head downstairs to Ellen’s together at around eight, trying to beat the crowds and have a good hour or two without the bar being packed. Charlie made Benny and Dean sit down for a full hour to give their not-so-expert opinions on what she should wear in case that girl from the comic book shop down the block came in again. Her Spider-Man tshirt clashes spectacularly with her neon yellow Docs, but that was just Charlie. 

“Well look what the cat dragged in!” Ellen yells the second they appear, Charlie leading the way, a streak of neon that drew every eye in the room, Benny and Dean following her, perfectly mismatched in black and flannel.

“Hey Ellen,” Dean slides onto a stool at the barn, and is immediately with a dishrag thrown in his face, “what the hell is that for?”

“For not coming to see me down here for almost two months,” Ellen stands defiant when he reappears, hair damp from the gross bar rag. He knows better than to try to defend himself. He can tell Benny is laughing out of the corner of his eye.

“I have a kid to take care of,” he starts, but the danger in Ellen’s eyes grows by degrees, because she knows as well as he does that that’s a bullshit excuse and that Sam had been drinking Cokes at this bar since he was ten years old, listening to bands that Dean would insist were too loud to listen to without earplugs. Ellen had started stocking them behind the bar when they moved in, and Dean still remembers when Sam would sit, eyes wide, staring at Cas and Charlie and Benny play their set, the orange earplugs sticking out of his ears as he swayed to the music, no rhythm even then.

“Sorry Ellen,” he knows that’s all he can say.

She can’t ever stay mad at him for long. Charlie insists that he’s her favorite, and Ellen has, in turn, loudly proclaimed that she doesn’t have favorites.

“That’s okay Dean,” she slides a beer across the bar to him. Dean’s favorite, he loves her, “So tell me everything. I heard you and Lisa broke up.”

Dean shoots a glare over at Charlie, who’s chatting loudly with some friends who just “happened” to stop by.

“Everyone always knows my business,” he pouts, “I’m never allowed to have any secrets.”

“You shouldn’t be keeping secrets from me anyway,” Ellen eyes him, “You look like you’ve lost weight, has the breakup been hitting you that hard?”

Dean looks down at himself. He doesn’t feel all that different, he mostly just been too busy at work to eat lunch recently, maybe that was it.

“Not really, not as bad as it probably should be.”

Ellen, in classic Ellen form, leans forward and pats the side of Dean’s face with her warm hand, and Dean leans into her, reminded why he likes coming down here and sitting at the bar on the weekends. Ellen was like one of those bartenders from movies, where they just quietly listened to all of your problems and offered sage advice, never to be seen again. Except Ellen knew the ins and outs of Dean’s life, and wasn’t afraid to snap him with a bar rag if he was doing something stupid. Which, let’s face it, was a lot.

If Benny hadn’t been two feet from him, he might’ve broken down and just told her how he was suddenly feeling kind of weird about Cas, probably leaving out the part that they had slept together on and off for several years, the agreement just wasn’t conducive for explaining to other people. Maybe he would try, if he could form literally any of his thoughts into any sort of coherent phrase. But he can’t. So he goes back to Lisa, you know, the person that he had been in a long-term relationship with, who he should be distraught about no longer being with. That person, Dean.

“I just felt like it might’ve been a long time coming.”

“I get it, sweetie. You holding up okay though?”

“Yeah, Sam was doing okay so that made it easier for me.”

Her face is soft as she makes a gin and tonic for a regular Dean doesn’t know.

“I didn’t ask about Sam, I asked about you.”

Dean rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. He doesn’t like talking about himself. She knows that.

“How’s Jo doing in school?”

She shakes her head and Benny laughs next to him.

“It’s been like this for weeks, Ellen. He won’t even talk about his fancy cool job anymore.”

“I don’t talk about my fancy cool job because if I think about it too much I’ll remember the last time we watched _Chernobyl_ and think about dying of radiation sickness.”

Benny just shrugs.

“If the plant goes we all go, man.”

“Okay, okay, can we lighten the mood a little, boys?” Ellen rolls her eyes good naturedly, “I’m trying to run a bar, not a funeral home.”

“Are you saying the slow, painful death caused by radiation sickness isn’t good conversation for a Saturday night?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Change the subject.”

They spend the rest of the evening chatting with Ellen, being graced by Charlie every so often as she travels between her nerd friends and them, begging free drinks out of Ellen with false promises that she would pay her friends’ tab at the end of the night. Ellen was too smart to believe it, but never strict with Charlie like she was with the rest of them. Charlie had always been able to get away with anything, probably because she was so goddamn smart and nice, damn her.

Benny and Dean end up being enlisted to help work behind the bar when it gets busy around ten pm, and Dean loses himself in the repetition of making drinks, flirting with everyone to get better tips, and getting smacked in the back of the head by Ellen when he was laying on the charm too much. He and Benny even have to drag a guy out and toss him in the street when he tries to grab a bottle of tequila out of Ellen’s hands.

Ellen closes up at two and orders them cheese fries from their favorite late night place as a thank you for their work. She even orders Charlie some, even though Dean loudly points out that she didn’t do shit all night and doesn’t deserve blessed cheese fries for doing nothing.

They stay up way too late after closing, eating cheese fries, listening to punk music, and swapping stories that they had all heard at least a hundred times before.

“When does Jo come home? How’s school for her? She have plans after graduation?”

Ellen sighs heavily, it had been tough for Jo to move to the west coast for school. Granted, the full tuition to UCLA had definitely been a selling point, but they all knew the idea of her coming home, or even a little bit closer, was definitely something that appealed to Ellen.

“She’s good. She calls every day, for me more than for her I think. She’s telling me all about classes and friends and places that I’m never going to see.”

“You’ll get out there for graduation, make her take you to all these places she’s been talking about forever.”

“Yeah, hopefully it doesn’t take her ten years to finish her degree like our resident engineer.”

Dean flicks a stray piece of ice at Charlie’s face. He has deadly aim, it hits her square in the nose.

“It only took me five. Five is a healthy amount of years for college, especially when you change from Communications to Nuclear Engineering.”

“Now I know you aren’t shading Communications,” Benny smiles at him, with that edge that means that Dean was going to get put in a headlock if he wasn’t careful, “I’m proud of my comm degree.”

“No shade involved, the only shade is to me for not realizing I’m actually good at math and hate talking to people.”

“Anyway,” Charlie talks over them both, “when does Jo come home, Ellen? I need her to help me wrangle these idiots.”

“As if we aren’t the ones wrangling you?” Benny raises his eyebrows at Charlie, who has the literal audacity to look shocked.

“Don’t believe a word she says, Ellen,” Dean starts before Charlie can, “Benny and I had to carry her to bed last week.”

Ellen laughs as Charlie splutters.

“That’s only because Benny challenged me to a shot game and he’s bigger than me! It’s not fair to bring that up!”

“Just laying out the facts so Ellen doesn’t get the wrong idea.”

Ellen hugs him tight as he makes a move for the stairs when she finally closes up for the night, kicking them out and making them promise they’d be back the next weekend, and he returns it with enough enthusiasm that he picks her up off her feet, feeling his heart lighten at her laughter.

When Dean collapses into his bed at dawn, utterly exhausted, he feels a little more like himself than he had in the past few weeks, like maybe things were going back to normal.


	7. Icky Thump

Halloween comes and goes quickly, bringing with it the chill of fall that would soon turn into a brutal, months long winter. Charlie tries to drag Dean out to a party at a bar in the next town over, but he decides to spend some much needed time with Sam, watching shitty scary movies and eating the candy they never gave out to anyone and laughing at the terrible effects and jumpscares. (They watch a lot of horror movies, they’re like a shitty, over-effected security blanket).

Sam tells Dean all about the girl he’s now been on three dates with, Jessica, and how he was hoping to ask her to his winter formal at the end of the year. Dean listens intently, trying to come up with the best way to ask her. Nothing too cheesy, nothing too over the top. Dean remembers the time he had asked Lisa to a fancy dinner in a tuxedo, but Sam nixes that, they would be hanging out in a few weeks with their friends, and a full tuxedo might give the game away.

“She’s gonna say yes, man, from everything you’ve told me it seems like it’s going really well.

Sam kicks the worn carpet at his feet, his eyes on the floor. Dean can tell he’s blushing.

“I really like her, you know. She’s really easy to talk to. Like one of my best friends.”

“That’s the best way to do it, dude. Friends first, that’s what I always say.”

Sam eyes Dean out of the corner of his eyes.

“Didn’t you and Lisa get together after a one-night stand?”

Dean throws up his hands, stuffing another Snickers bar in his mouth.

“Do as I say, not as I do, Sammy. Next time I’ll be friends with them first.”

His stomach does a weird flip at his own words, and as his brain catches up with what he says, he feels his ears turn red.

Thankfully, Sam doesn’t seem to notice, just turns his attention back to _Saw III._

Before Dean can broach the subject of bringing out their winter clothes and taking Sam shopping for all the shit he’s undoubtedly outgrown in the last year, there’s a bang on the door. Both of their heads snap to it, waiting for Charlie and Benny to stumble through, shitfaced no doubt. There’s another bang. Dean looks at his watch, it was only 11:30, too early for them to be done.

He stands up and looks through the peephole, to see Cas leaning in the doorframe. He opens the door immediately, only for Cas to fall through it straightaway. Dean catches him clumsily before he hits the floor, and Sam is hovering over them both, looking concerned.

“Cas? You okay man?”

“Me? I’m great, I’m so great Dean.”

Dean sighs heavily.

“Sam, can you go get me a big glass of water?”

Sam nods and rushes to the sink as Dean helps Cas sit up. Cas is dressed for the club, his eyeliner had run slightly from sweat, his orange and black eyeshadow matched his hair, and he was dressed in his leather pants, which he insisted were very in vogue and Dean was just out of touch. At least he wasn’t in his heeled boots, just converse, he would’ve broken an ankle for sure.

“You didn’t drive here did you?”

“No, I’m not stupid, I just walked here from down the block.”

Sam appears at Dean’s shoulder with the glass of water.

“Thanks Sammy,” Dean takes it from him and hands it to Cas, “You’re gonna drink this, and then I’m taking you to sleep this off.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, just takes the glass of water and chugs until water runs down his chin and neck. Dean swallows. He’s fine, this is fine.

Cas hands the empty water glass back to Sam and Dean helps him to his feet.

“Pause the movie, will you? I’ll be back in like five.”

Dean supports Cas all the way to his bedroom, nudging open the door and flicking on the light. He sets Cas down on his bed gently, and then begins unlacing his sneakers. Cas watches him intently, a little more intently, and soberly than Dean would like.

“Dean.”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Look at me.”

Dean does, meeting his eyes almost reluctantly.

“Why are you doing this?”

Dean laughs loudly, tossing Cas’ shoes into the corner by the door. He stands up, rummaging through his dresser drawers for the pack of makeup wipes he had stolen from Charlie for occasions just like this. He turns back to Cas with a wipe in his hand, grinning at him.

“Well, I am the mom friend, and you almost kicked in my door so.”

Cas laughs at that, letting Dean takes his face in his hands, closing his eyes so Dean can start taking off the eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow.

“Didn’t mean to, misjudged the distance when I was trying to knock.”

“Good party, then?”

“Sure was, my friend kept making me do jello shots every time we saw a grim reaper costume. I should probably be getting my stomach pumped right now.”

“You’re on a kick with those jello shots.”

“How do you mean?”

Dean thinks about lying, sometimes he remembers too many details and has to white lie and pretend that he doesn’t, it freaks some people out. He decides against it, it is Cas that he’s talking to, after all.

“You mentioned it a few weeks ago when we went to New Haven, left me that voice memo at like three am.”

Cas’ face breaks into a wide smile.

“I forgot about that. We do really need to make them.”

“Can we take a rain check on that? You’ve probably had enough for the night, yeah?”

Cas sighs, rubbing his eyes before Dean can stop him, smudging the remaining makeup even more.

“I guess.”

“For someone that’s so anal about skincare you sure didn’t come prepared tonight.”

“I have some stuff in your bathroom.”

Dean grins at him, still working on getting the literal layers of mascara off his eyelashes. He didn’t really need it, his eyelashes were so long and pretty and…

Anyway.

“Yeah as if you won’t crash into the wall when you try and stand up. Sorry, looks like your skin just has to suffer tonight.”

“You act like I can’t hold my liquor.”

“Do I need to remind you to you nearly kicked in my door a couple of seconds ago? Close your eyes, I’m almost done.”

Cas does as he’s told, and Dean notices he’s tracing pattens into Dean’s forearm, leaving heat in the wake of his fingertips, like he’s made of fire.

“You are such a mom friend.”

“I have to be,” Dean ignores the pressure building in his chest, “when all my friends are disasters.”

The makeup was almost completely gone now, the wipe covered in inky orange and black splotches.

“Well, that’s as good as I got. Go to bed, I’ll bring you some more water and see you in the morning.”

Cas catches his hand as he stands up, pulling it towards his lips.

“Thank you, Dean.”

Dean smiles and drops a kiss onto the top of Cas’ head, tossing the makeup wipe in the trash on his way out.

Sam is full of concern when Dean reappears.

“Is Cas okay?”

“He’s fine dude, he took too many jello shots. Let’s watch this movie.”

“You’re a good friend,” Sam says quietly as they settle back down.

“It’s Cas,” Dean replies simply, trying not to read into his own words too much.

At around three, they drift off to their respective rooms, Dean filling up another huge glass of water to take to Cas, grabbing some aspirin and a bottle of Gatorade on his way for good measure. Cas was a little bitch when he was this hungover, Dean knew the routine.

Cas was sprawled out on his bed, snoring loudly. He had pulled off his shirt and wriggled out of his pants since Dean had left him, and he did his best not to stare at him in the dim light. He really wanted to trace the tattoo of the Teton mountains that was visible on his hip, but resisted the temptation. He got a lot of self-control, thank you very much. Dean set the water, the aspirin, and the Gatorade by the bedside table nearest him, stripped down to his boxers, and went to brush his teeth. He collapses right next to Cas, trying to resist curling closer to him. It doesn’t work, and he falls asleep as they match each other’s breathing

The next morning, Dean puts away his summer clothes in the back of his closet, dragging out the bins that held his and Sam’s winter gear one weekend, making a whole day of cleaning and organizing it, making Sam try on everything, making a list of what they needed to buy. It was a blessing that he hadn’t grown out of his winter boots yet, they had just bought him a new pair the year before and Dean really didn’t want to drop another two-hundred dollars on the nice ones to prevent him from getting frostbite in six inches of snow.

Cas wakes up late in the morning, looking embarrassed as Dean and Sam get ready to head out to Target.

“Sleeping Beauty finally rises,” Dean grins at him as Cas rubs a hand over his face.

“Don’t make fun of me, I feel like shit.”

Dean surveys him, the top of his hair was still bright orange, at odds with the black underneath of his natural hair. It was sticking up in all directions, looking exactly like a traffic cone if you put it through an industrial shredder. Dean definitely doesn’t pay attention to the way his muscles tighten and strain as he stretches.

“You look like shit.”

Cas flips him off, collapsing on the couch and clutching his head.

“There are some eggs on the stove if you feel like eating, Sam and I will be back in a couple of hours if you three can not burn down the house.”

“Charlie and Benny are back?” Cas croaks.

“Sure are, got back at like eight this morning, looked worse than you if you can believe it,” Dean grins again, “Eat something, some of us have to be productive today.”

“Or we can just stay here,” Sam eyes Dean hopefully, he hates clothes shopping.

“No dice Sammy, we have to get you pants that aren’t six inches too short.”

Sam sighs heavily and clumps down the stairs to the Impala.

Dean eyes Cas as he goes to leave.

“You gonna survive without me for a couple of hours?”

Cas looks up at him, the corners of his mouth lifting into a crooked smile.

“Not sure I can.”

Dean looks at the ground to hide his smile, and catches Cas’ wink as he closes the door and heads down to the Impala where a grumpy Sam was waiting.


	8. Ain't It Fun

Dean becomes very good at locking his emotions in a place where no one will ever see them. He decides that if he can’t understand what’s going on inside his own head, he wasn’t going to put it on anyone else to figure it out.

So things go back to normal. He and Cas become attached at the hip again, and Dean does his best to avoid thinking about things that he wouldn’t normally think about his best friend. He watches them play, getting ready for a gig in Boston right before Christmas, he cooks for Cas, spends time at his house, makes sure that everything is just the way that it was before.

But sometimes, try as he might, he can’t escape the fact that something is different, something feels different when he thinks about Cas. Dean notices details he didn’t notice before, details like the freckles on Cas’ shoulders, the way the edges of his oldest tattoos are lighter than the rest, the way his smiles to Dean are softer than they are to anyone else. Dean obsesses over these details, and he doesn’t know why. What’s different? Nothing’s changed, everything is exactly as it was a couple of months ago. He tries to convince himself that he’s just still getting over Lisa, that’s the only reason he’s noticing things like that.

Deep down he knows it’s bullshit.

He doesn’t dwell on it, he lets the mundanity of every day life consume him, reveling in the little joys, like Jessica accepting Sam’s invitation to his winter formal, to the frustrations, like Charlie breaking their dining table by betting Benny a steak dinner she could snap it in half with a single jump (she won).

Dean goes all out on thanksgiving, making Benny, Sam, Charlie, Cas, Ellen, and Jo (who is home from college and always willing to team up with Charlie to rile Dean up) sit down in the bar, as he gives them course after course of the best cooking anyone on the Eastern Seaboard could offer.

They stay up all night preparing for the meal. Dean ends up sitting two inches from the oven, checking on his apple pie every ten seconds, trying to get the perfect balance of golden brown and soft apples without letting it burn even a little.

“You’re a little bit anal, you know that right?” Jo is staring at him as she gets a bottle of water out of the fridge.

“Excuse me, aren’t you supposed to be doing some green bean snapping?”

“We finished half an hour ago, dumbass. Everyone is enjoying quality time while you stare at an oven at eleven at night.”

Dean throws a spatula at her, which she dodges. Typical.

“I liked you better when you were in California.”

She grins and pours some of the water on his head. Before he can get up and retaliate, Cas appears, grinning down at Dean like he knows something Dean doesn’t.

“You okay down here?”

“I’m fine, no one appreciates art in this house.”

Cas leans against the counter, watching Dean watch his pie.

“You really should come join everyone, we’re watching _Law and Order: SVU_ and counting how many times the characters commit crimes themselves.”

“I’ll be there in a few.”

Cas doesn’t say anything else, just slides down into a sitting position on the floor, his back still on the counter.

“Don’t let me ruin the _SVU_ thing for you, it just needs a few more minutes,” Dean grins at Cas, trying to make it clear that he could stare at his pie on his own, he didn’t need a babysitter.

“That’s okay, I can hear them from five feet away.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but gives Cas a half smile that gets returned with interest.

“We should dye your hair tonight.”

“Oh yeah? What were you thinking?”

“Have you ever done that platinum silver before? That might look good.”

Cas considers him, running his hands through his hair, still orange from Halloween, though with a healthy amount of black in the roots matching the sides now.

“That could be cool, could look nice for the show in Boston.”

“Yeah, I can help you if you want.”

“Of course, who else would fail miserably at toning for me?”

Dean grins, then hurries to check his pie.

“You really are being anal about this pie, it isn’t laced with anything is it?”

“No, but Jo hasn’t been home in a few months and this is her favorite so.”

“Aw.”

“Don’t tell her I said that.”

Once Dean is satisfied that his pie would be fine overnight, he and Cas head to CVS and then the bathroom, holding a box of bleach and platinum silver hair dye.

They did this every so often, whenever Cas decided that he wasn’t satisfied with his hair color. They only ever touched the top of his head, always leaving the sides short and his natural hair color. It was his signature, and you don’t mess with a musician’s signature.

As usual, they end up in their underwear in the bathtub, Dean doing his best to only get the parts of Cas’ hair bleached that he actually wants bleached and spilling it all over himself in the process.

“Is this like a sex thing?” Jo’s voice comes from the doorway.

“Oh yeah, can’t you tell how much fun I’m having?” Dean grumbles, trying to wipe the bleach mixture off his face without getting it in his eyes.

“Unbelievably, this is lightyears better than what it was when we first started doing this,” Cas tells Jo, and Charlie, who has materialized out of nowhere and forced her way in the door so she can sit on the toilet and annoy them,

“They just do this every so often, I think it’s how Dean gets his inner art kid out.”

“I was never an art kid, I was too busy getting fucked.”

Charlie laughs so hard she nearly falls of the toilet, and Dean knows there was a better comeback than the one he gave, but he’s kinda busy at the moment.

“Can you concentrate please?” Cas asks, “I don’t want to have to shave my head before the show in Boston.”

“Why are you yelling at me? Blame Charlie.”

“Classic older brother, blaming the younger one for all the problems.”

Dean throws his little mixing spoon at her, which he regrets immediately when she runs out of the room with it. He needed that.

“You’ve gotta go get it,” Cas grins as he turns on the faucet, “I’ll rinse out while you go bargain with her.”

It ends up being a ten minute chase scene, Charlie knows his weakness, and opens the door to the fridge, which is full to bursting with the food that Dean had been cooking for the past week.

“Get away from my green bean casserole!”

“Sam, catch!”

Dean immediately tears after Sam, who is too quick for this to be a fair fight.

“Sam!”

Sam doesn’t respond, only locks himself in his room with Benny against the door and laughs.

“Cas’ hair is going to burn off if you don’t give me that mixer thing! Do you want Cas’ hair to burn off?”

“Cas doesn’t want his hair to burn off,” Cas yells from the bathroom, and Sam cracks open the door at his words, still giggling as he holds out the mixer.

“I’m just giving this back because of Cas,” he informs Dean, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Where is the blood loyalty, Sam?”

“I’m giving it back to you, aren’t I?”

Dean just huffs as he turns back to the bathroom, where Cas is waiting with a shock of thoroughly bleached hair, completely at odds with the dark sides. Yeah, plain platinum wasn’t going to work, they needed that purple sliver color.

“You look like a skunk.”

“Wow thank you very much for your observations, but I’m not paying salon prices for this mistreatment.”

“Who are you paying? My tip’s getting lost in the mail.

Cas raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m so sorry, what form of currency do you take?”

“I take cash or cash.”

“Can I trade you?”

Dean starts to put things together in his brain. His eyes flick to the bathroom door, he can hear everyone else laughing at something in the living room.

“Sure, what’s the trade for my top notch skills and almost getting bleach in your eyes?”

Cas bites his lip, staring at Dean’s mouth, and Dean feels the color rising in his face. They’re staring at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move, when Benny appears in the doorway.

“Can y’all hurry up? Some of us want to take a shower before five am.”

The bubble is broken.

“Art takes time,” Dean tells him, trying to act like nothing was happening.

“And if you want me to help you with shit in the morning I’d like to go to bed before dawn.”

“We’ll be done in a few,” Cas promises, grinning as Dean starts lathering the dye onto his head.

Cas ends up humming gently to pass the time, working on keys and rhythms for one of their new songs. Dean likes when he does this, it makes Dean feel like he’s part of the band even though he failed the recorder part of music class in second grade.

“I like that,” he says quietly as they work on toning his hair, which Dean has noticed curls when it gets wet.

“Do you? We’re thinking about putting it in the set for Boston. I like it too but I think Benny and Charlie are on the fence about it.”

“Why?”

“It’s just newer, we aren’t as comfortable with it. Plus Charlie and I haven’t figured out the duet part yet.”

“You’re gonna sing? Oh I so can’t wait.”

Cas laughs, washing out his hair for the last time.

“We’ll see, I’m excited for you to see it.”

Dean watches as Cas pulls out Charlie’s hair dryer and works on styling his new hair. It ends up looking better than either of them expected it to, Dean really was getting better at the hair dyeing.

“It looks great,” Dean stands and stretches, working out the kinks in his back from hunching over in the tub for so long. Before he can make his way out the door, back to the crowded living room, Cas grabs the hem of his t shirt, and pulls him towards him, so they’re about an inch from each other, noses almost touching.

“I was serious about that trade,” Cas whispers.

Dean, against his better judgement, against all the advice he had given himself when he was lying in bed, considering his fucked up feelings, he reaches out and brushes his thumb against Cas’ bottom lip, his fingers catching against the metal ring there. Cas leans into his touch, and heat begins to pool at the base of Dean’s stomach. He feels his heart speed up, his breathing gets shallow, and he’s about half a second from doing something real dumb when he hears someone coming down the hall, and he turns away from Cas, feeling his fingers linger on Dean’s ribs.

Dean definitely doesn’t think about that every second of the rest of the night.

The next morning, Dean gets up hours before anyone else, starting to put things in the oven right at eight am, turning on the Macy’s Parade (he loves it, okay? Don’t judge.). 

“How’s it going?” Jo’s voice comes from the couch. She had evidently stayed put when they all drifted off to bed.

“Jesus Jo, you scared me.”

“Sorry not sorry,” she stretches, watching him already sweating over his green bean casserole, “You need help with anything?”

“You wanna peel potatoes for me?”

She grins.

“Sure.”

He hands her the potato peeler and two bags of potatoes. She stares at them, incredulous.

“You’re shitting me. This is how many potatoes you’re making?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

“You could feel the whole of this town with this much food.”

“Have you ever heard of leftovers? It’s a thrilling concept.”

She rolls her eyes as she moves towards the sink to start washing and peeling. They work in a comfortable silence for around half an hour. Dean is concentrating on prepping his turkey when Jo speaks quietly, so no one else will hear,

“So what’s going on with you and Cas?”

Dean does his best not to freeze over the turkey, but there’s not controlling the blush that creeps up his ears.

“What do you mean?”

He doesn’t look at Jo, but he can feel her eyes on him.

“Something seems…different between you two.”

Well nothing was different, they were doing the same thing they’d been doing for years. It did not make Dean feel good that other people were picking up on the energy change though.

“Nothing’s different. He’s just been there for me through my breakup with Lisa, that’s all.”

He makes the mistake of looking at her this time, and she’s leaning against the sink, potato suspended above it in her hand. It doesn’t look like she believes him. It really sucks sometimes that he has such great friends, you can’t hide anything from them.

“Something was weird last night. It’s been weird since I got home. And I have a hard time believing it’s about Lisa, you broke up more than you were together.”

He thinks, fleetingly, about being honest with Jo. He thinks about telling her that he feels…something for Cas, and it has been changing, he doesn’t even know what it is, and he’s too afraid to look too deep into it because what if it was something scary, something that could change them. Dean didn’t want to change them.

He pushes the thought from his mind. They had agreed, they wouldn’t tell anyone.

“It’s nothing, nothing’s different.”

Jo can evidently tell that he’s not going to budge.

“Fine,” she relents, “Don’t tell me, but just so you know, I’m not the only one that suspicious.”

Shit.

“There’s nothing to be suspicious of! First of all, I dye his hair all the time, and second-”

“I’m just warning you, man.”

She leaves it at that, going back to the potatoes and the Macy’s Parade. Before Dean can say anything else, Charlie pokes her head around her doorframe.

“Breakfast?”

“Sure, if you want a raw turkey.”

“Blech,” she pads to the couch in her fuzzy duck pajamas, “Let me know when you make breakfast.”

“I’m not your mom, you can make your own breakfast.”

“I could, but since you’ll be mad at me if I get in your way-”

“What’s for breakfast?” Sam asks the second he opens the door to his room. Dean throws up his hands in exasperation as Jo and Charlie laugh.

“I am the maid of this house!”

“That’s true,” Benny makes his appearance as well, apparently everyone decided to wake up at the same time today.

“You could help me,” he points out, “Jo’s helping.”

“Sure, what do you need help with?”

Dean wrangles Benny and Charlie into stuffing prep as he seasons and sets the turkey in the oven.

“Okay, that’s in there for six hours, I can make you heathens breakfast now.”

“Why does Sam get breakfast, he’s not helping,” Charlie whines as she chops celery.

“Sam is a minor so he gets breakfast by default.”

“Did someone say breakfast?” Cas’ voice comes from Dean’s bedroom. Dean’s eyes flick from Cas, who’s still shirtless and has bedhead, to Jo, who is watching him with a searching look on her face. There was an edge of understanding that scared him a little bit, so he does what he does best: he deflects.

“What do y’all want?”

Dean makes enough eggs and bacon to feed a small army, and they eat in front of the TV, watching the last of the parade and then the National Dog Show, which Dean also shamelessly loves. If he doesn’t think about being watched, it’s a normal day, and when they carry everything downstairs, where Ellen had put four tables together and covered them in one of her nice tablecloths, Dean is really really excited for everyone to taste everything.

He counts the dishes on the table. Turkey, dressing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts and carrots, dinner rolls, gravy, apple pie, pecan pie, and even that gross cranberry sauce that Benny ate out of the can. Okay, it looks like they have everything,

“This looks great, honey,” Ellen kisses his cheek as he sets the turkey in front of her, settling himself next to Cas, who squeezes his knee under the table.

“It really does look great,” he whispers in his ear, his hand still on Dean’s knee. Dean’s heart kicks up a few notches.

“Speaking of great, your hair turned out really nice, Cas,” Jo grins at him, and Cas breaks away from Dean. Dean doesn’t understand why he misses the contact immediately.

“Thank you, it’ll look nice for Boston I think.”

“You excited about the show? It’s a big deal for y’all.”

Cas, Charlie, and Benny immediately all start talking over each other, about how this is their big break, how the set list needed to be perfect, how Charlie was definitely going to find a girlfriend in Boston and leave the rest of them in the dust.

“Yeah okay sure,” Benny leans back on the two back legs of his chair, a forkful of mashed potatoes on his fork, “You said that the last time we played in New Haven. You saw a girl you thought was cute and then you hid behind me while I asked her for her number on your behalf.”

“That was different, I’ve grown since then.”

“It was six months ago.”

“Semantics.”

Dean just listens as everyone chatters around him, grinning with his mouth full as they complimented the food. Sam keeps smiling at him, and Charlie gets shouted down when she brings up the idea of Christmas music.

“December first Charlie,” Cas complains, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. Dean eyes him, his hair does look good.

“I don’t know why you’re all Christmas haters.”

“Fuck you, I love Christmas,” Dean tells her.

“You watch your mouth at the table, huh?”

“Sorry ma’am.”

“Yeah Dean,” Charlie sticks her tongue out at him. Sam laughs uproariously. Dean throws a dinner roll at his head.

“Sometimes it’s like I have six children instead of just one.”

“I’m just defending my honor,” Dean puts up his hands, flipping Charlie off when Ellen isn’t looking. Cas snorts into his water.

They end the evening by cramming into Ellen’s place next door, she makes them all coffee and they watch rom coms of Charlie and Jo’s choosing until they fall asleep in her living room. Sam ends up curled up next to Dean, sleeping like he did when he was little, and Cas ends up on his other side, his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s not super comfortable, but he wouldn’t move an inch. As the credits for _13 Going On 30_ roll, he takes a second to bask in how peaceful he felt, because who knew how long that would last.


	9. Love it if We Made It

On the night before the show in Boston, Charlie, Dean, Sam, Benny, Jo, and Cas take the train from New London up to the city, and check into the swanky hotel they had booked for the night in the early afternoon.

It’s easily the nicest hotel Dean has ever stayed in, and he had splurged so Sam could get his own room. Listen, they don’t take vacations often, and even though he worked in a place that could make him look like an over-microwaved hotdog if something went wrong, it paid really well, and for the first time in their lives, he could afford two rooms at a nice hotel.

Sam bounds into his room and immediately closes the door to facetime Jessica (his official girlfriend which definitely doesn’t make Dean emotional when he thinks about it too much).

Dean is theoretically not sharing a room with anyone, but knows he’s likely going to be sharing with Cas. Sure enough, Cas is lying on one of the beds overlooking downtown when Dean gets to his room. The other bed is currently home to Cas’ bass and some other equipment. Fortunately they didn’t have to bring amps or anything, the club was going to be providing all that. He had spent too much time lugging fourteen metric tons of equipment all across the northeast, either in the Impala or on the train for the success of this band. He had thrown out his back once when they had to carry an amp up a four floor walkup to play in someone’s apartment in New York City once. Cas, Charlie, and Benny had bought him dinner at his favorite restaurant back home for a week straight, and he had to hobble around campus like an old man for two weeks in the middle of finals. Yeah, he’d never really forgotten that one.

Things hadn’t been awkward between him and Cas for the past couple of weeks. Meaning Dean had successfully bottled his feelings to prevent suspicion, even Jo hadn’t been eyeing them since she had gotten home for winter break, so he felt more at ease than he had before. Jo’s words during thanksgiving had put him on edge, not that he hadn’t been overly self-conscious about every move he made about Cas before or anything. He still didn’t know what the fuck was going on with him, but he was back to being “normal” or as Charlie called it “less of a psychopath than normal” which was a step in the right direction.

“When do you have to be down there?”

“Like a few hours, do you want to grab lunch?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice. I’ll text Sam.”

Dean settles on the edge of the bed next to the bass, and they spend a few minutes in silence, with the sound of the city twenty floors below them. Dean hasn’t spent much time in Boston, he was excited to see a little more of it, even if it was only for a night.

“You nervous?” Dean breaks the easy silence. Cas looks over at him from whatever game he’s playing on his phone.

“Sorta I guess. It’s a big show for sure but I mean, we’re ready for it.”

“It’ll be great,” and then, because he cannot be normal for ten fucking seconds, “Your hair looks nice today. Looks good with your eyes.”

With his eyes? What the fuck?

Cas smiles a little softly at him, like he knows something Dean doesn’t.

“Thank you. I like this color, maybe we can redo it after New Years.”

“Yeah, yeah. That sounds great.”

“So are we trying to hook you up with someone tonight?”

Dean’s stomach drops to his shoes.

“Huh?”

“Come on, I bet if the bassist put in a good word for you, you’d get anyone you wanted after the show.”

“Uh,” Dean feels his face betraying him, turning red against his will, “I don’t know, maybe. Sam’s there so probably not.”

Cas’ eyes narrow, and he bites his lip in a way that he cannot know makes Dean feel some type of way.

“Okay, whatever. But my offer stands.”

“Offer?”

“Are you okay?” Cas is grinning now, sitting up to look Dean full in the face, “My offer to get you laid.”

“Oh,” fuck his stupid fucking brain, “Yeah that’s cool, we’ve got to leave early tomorrow anyway.”

“Okay well, it won’t stop me if I meet someone cool,” Cas goes back to his phone. Dean feels like someone sucked all the air out of the room.

Look, these comments don’t bother him really. They’re commonplace. He and Cas talk about everything, including their hookups, sometimes in excruciating detail, it’s not like they’re awkward about this. Dean’s just being stupid. He’s being really stupid. He needs to get over this dumb crush, especially because he’s 100% straight anyway.

He gets a text from Charlie. They’re waiting downstairs. He tells Cas as much. Cas stands and stretches, revealing a strip of his stomach that Dean tries really hard not to look at. He feels like a teenage girl sometimes nowadays, it’s really annoying.

“What’re you looking at?”

Fuck. He’s caught.

“Just my watch since I’m waiting on you.”

Really smooth, he won’t suspect a thing now.

“Whatever.”

Charlie, Sam, Jo, and Benny are waiting for them in the swanky lobby, Charlie tapping her foot impatiently on the shiny tile floor.

“You look hangry,” Dean points out when they’re within hearing range.

“I am hangry, what took you so long?”

“It has literally been two minutes since you sent me the text that you were down here.”

“I’m allowed to be dramatic, I’m starving to death.”

“She’s been complaining like this for the last hour, please can we get her some food before I go crazy?”

They make their way to some seafood place right on the water, next to the New England Aquarium. Dean loves aquariums, he’ll probably come check that out when Benny, Charlie, and Cas have to go get set up at the space.

Cas sees him eyeing the place as they walk toward the restaurant, Cas and Dean a little behind the group, under the pretense of not hearing Charlie complain about everything for a few seconds.

“You gonna go over there?”

“Hell yeah, I haven’t been to a good one in months. There are no good ones around us.”

“Except the world’s biggest aquarium, the ocean.”

Dean rolls his eyes and punches Cas on the shoulder.

“You know, I really can’t observe sharks in the Long Island Sound, thanks for your suggestion though. Please deposit it in the trash.”

Cas grins at him, walking so their shoulders were pressed together.

“I know how you love sharks, but get me an otter souvenir please.”

“If you’re nice to me I might.”

“I’m always nice to you.”

Before Dean can retort, Sam and Jo are turning around and pointing franticly to the just visible outline of the Aquarium.

“There’s a shark banner!” Sam yells.

“Am I really that obvious about them?”

“You have shark bedsheets.”

“Touche.”

It’s way too cold to sit outside, but they get a nice table by the window, and get to watch the boats go by. It’s a swankier place than they would normally go to, but nothing beats seafood right by the water. Charlie doesn’t even participate in the conversation until she’s eaten almost an entire basket of bread, but then she comes back to her usual self.

“That was some serious hanger,” Jo laughs as Charlie leans back in her chair.

“Listen, I didn’t have breakfast this morning, then we hauled all of our shit to the station and onto the train, then to the hotel. I was hungry!”

“You’re always accusing me of eating too fast,” Sam says, “Look at what you did to that bread, it never stood a chance.”

“You always eat too fast though, I was starving to death.”

Dean scoffs, doing his best to be polite in this fancy restaurant even though he’s constantly fighting the urge to tip his chair onto its back legs.

“Starving to death,” he mimics her, and Jo has to hold her back from throwing the basket across the table at him.

“If you get us thrown out of here and keep me from these clams,” Benny threatens, looking less like their friend and more like a father trying to keep his unruly children in line, “I will refuse to play tonight.”

“Damn,” Cas whispers, “these clams must be for real.”

“They are! And I never get to have them!”

Everyone mostly settles down when the food arrives, and Benny’s right, it’s some of the best seafood he’s ever had. He steals a bite of Cas’ lobster when he thinks he isn’t looking and gets a slap to the back of his head for it. Jo laughs so hard at this that she starts literally snorting, and Benny is in the middle of giving them another lecture when their long-suffering waiter brings them their checks. They all tip well because they’re decent people and Benny continues to lecture them about being in a nice restaurant and not a frathouse until they get outside, where the bustling city swarms around them, in constant, ever-flowing motion.

Cas, Charlie, and Benny leave them outside the restaurant to head to the club, leaving Jo, Sam, and Dean with a free afternoon to do whatever. Dean is dead set on the aquarium, Jo wants to go shopping, and Sam saw some antique bookstore he wants to look for Jessica’s Christmas present in, so Dean get the aquarium experience all to himself, which he’s more than a little excited for.

Listen, he doesn’t know why, really, he loves aquariums so much. He’s always liked natural history museums, but aquariums especially have always been his favorite. He loves reading the little cards and seeing all the animals’ and fishes’ names, he loves the way the water reflects on the walls and the floor, sort of like you’re under the sea with them, in your own airbubble in the middle of the ocean floor, and he especially loves any time he gets to see a shark.

Dean loves sharks. Everyone knows this, obviously. At least one of his Christmas gifts every year is shark themed, and yes, he definitely has shark sheets on his bed that he got from Target (yes, they are supposed to be for a kid’s bed, no he does not care). Some aquariums are too small to have sharks, but this one was supposed to be pretty good, so he gets his hand stamp from the lady at the front desk, and takes a guide pamphlet to help him figure out where everything is.

It turns out to be a bomb aquarium. And they. Have. Sharks. Dean tries his best to play it cool when he finds the adult shark tank, but it doesn’t really work. He takes like a hundred pictures of them swimming around in their cool tank, and then spends forty-five minutes watching the penguins swim around their enclosure. He sends the group chat some videos of them getting their midday meal, and then selfies of him with the sharks.

He gets lost in the world of color, coral, water, and animals, and by the time he leaves the otter exhibit, the aquarium is closing and he’s got ten texts from Cas telling him he needs to get his ass back to the hotel so he, Sam, and Jo can take an uber to the venue. He pops into the gift shop and gets a little stuffed otter for Cas, which he will most certainly be wrapping and including in his Christmas presents this year. Dean’s so happy with his aquarium time that he doesn’t even care that Sam is giving him a serious bitchface for being late.

“You look like you had a really great time,” Jo grins at him as they clamber in the Uber and head to the South End. Cas’ band were the headliners so they didn’t need to get there right as the doors opened, but Dean had a feeling they needed to at least be nearby pretty early on, just in case any of them had a meltdown (which had happened more than once).

The venue was a nice bar with a good amount of seating around an honest to god stage. Sam gets the customary “x’s” on the back of his hands, and Dean swears up and down he’s his legal guardian and he’ll keep an eye on him. What the bouncer doesn’t know is that Sam is very boring and has no interest in drinking anything other than lemonade all night. The first band of the night is already setting up, and they grab seats right near the front before anyone else can. Jo gets herself and Dean a couple of beers and they just kinda quietly people-watch for a while as the space fills up with chatter and the clinking of glasses and scraping of chairs. 

Right as the opening band is about to get started, Dean gets a text from Benny.

_Cas is having a meltdown. Can you come help?_

Dean sighs, he knew it. All of Cas’ big talk about not being nervous was such bullshit.

“Save my seat,” he tells Jo and Sam, and he steps back towards where he thinks the backstage area would be. Benny pokes his head around a door down the hall and motions Dean towards him. Dean lengthens his stride.

“What happened?” he asks Benny, pulling him into the hall.

“I don’t know, he just started looking really weird when the girl running the whole thing told us to be ready in half an hour.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know man, he just asked for you.”

Dean sighs, and motions for Benny to lead the way. Charlie is sitting next to Cas on a little couch in the room. Cas is holding a water bottle, Dean can tell his hand is shaking.

“Cas?”

Cas’ shoulders visibly relax when he hears Dean’s voice. He looks up, his eyes worried and almost glassed over with panic.

“Dean, what the fuck am I doing here? I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do this?” Dean sinks down to Cas’ level on the couch and Benny sits on Cas’ other side, “Of course you can, man. This is what y’all have been waiting for. You’re gonna do so great, Cas. Just breathe. I’ll be right in the front.”

“You will?”

“Duh,” Dean reaches out to grab Cas’ hands in his own, interlacing their fingers without even thinking about it, “You know I’m not going anywhere.”

He hears the sound of the opening act hitting a stopping point. They would have to get out there soon.

“Breathe Cas. I’m here. Benny’s here. Charlie’s here. We got you.”

Cas takes a shuddering breath and then raises his eyes again. They look clearer this time.

“Okay,” he sighs heavily, “how did you know that’s just what I needed?”

“I’m a genius. Also I just happen to know you really well.”

“Get ready to set up,” the girl holding the clipboard and looking very official tells them. Dean rises with Cas, still holding his hands in his own. He finds himself rubbing his knuckles with his fingers, he remembered Cas doing something similar when he had had his meltdown about Lisa.

“C’mon Cas,” Benny bumps his shoulder gently, “We got this, man.”

Cas doesn’t take his eyes off Dean when he nods.

“Thanks for your help, Dean,” Charlie smiles at him. Dean breaks away from Cas, and immediately wants to reestablish contact. He settles for running his hand through his two-toned hair. Cas closes his eyes and leans into the touch.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and then Dean is ushered out of the room by Benny and Charlie, who are starting to get on edge themselves.

“Everything okay?” Sam and Jo both look concerned as Dean slides back into his seat. His hands are still tingling a little, probably because of how tight Cas was holding them.

“Yeah, Cas was just having a freakout moment. He’s calmed down now.”

He can see Jo watching him out of the corner of his eye, but she fortunately doesn’t say anything about it. Sam is more concerned with Cas than Dean’s embarrassment, however, and asks him endless questions until Cas, Charlie, and Benny take the stage, after the same girl with the clipboard announces them, _Shock Television_.

The crowd is on its feet the second they see them, everyone is cheering, and Dean can’t take his eyes off Cas, who meets his own, and Dean really feels like nothing else matters, like he can’t hear or see anything else. 

Then they start to play, and Dean forgets how awkward he is and how weird he feels about everything and just watches. All three of them are so intensely in their element it makes the entire room feel electric, and Dean sings along to all the songs, because he was one of the ones that heard them first. He’s not a hipster or anything, but he can’t help but feel pretty proud to have loved this band since they started playing in the apartment four years ago, after Charlie and Benny had bet Dean ten dollars that Cas wouldn’t agree to join their band (Dean lost, obviously).

He doesn’t feel like there’s much that can surprise him anymore. He remembers when they had spent three days and multiple twitter polls trying to figure out what the hell to name the band, and Cas had laughed at Benny’s suggestion of _Shock Television_ until it won almost unanimously. He remembers when Cas spent a week trying to figure out the hook for a song, and wouldn’t stop singing it over and over until Dean really thought his head was going to explode if he heard it again. But just like always, his friends always manage to come up with a curveball. In this case, the curveball is the duet.

Dean thought he had seen the setlist, he thought that he had known every song by heart, but when Charlie strums the opening chord of this one, he doesn’t recognize him, and if he thought his heart was racing before, it was nothing to what happened when Cas stepped up to the mic.

Dean’s heard Cas sing a lot, it’s not like he doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, but there was something about this, about the way he sways as he sings, about the way he and Charlie occasionally look at each other, about the way his hair keeps falling in his face, about the way Dean can see the goosebumps on his arms, that makes Dean think that he might have to evaporate on the spot. His chest feels weird and tight but he doesn’t want Cas to ever stop singing like this, they had to do this song in every set forever, Dean would demand it.

It’s sorta punk and sorta pop and Cas keeps looking at him when he sweeps the crowd and for the first time in his life Dean understands why girls pass out when they see their favorite band, because he knows he’s not breathing, he knows that he won’t breathe until this song is over. It doesn’t matter that he had heard the hook, heard snippets of the lyrics, heard the song from underneath the living room floor, he felt like one of the fans screaming for Cas in that moment, like he was about to thoroughly embarrass himself in front of his friends and his brother if he didn’t get ahold of himself ASAP.

The song, predictably, brings down the house, and Cas winks at Dean as they do an encore for the crowd, and then another one. Dean feels like his voice is going to disappear from how much he’s cheering. He can’t find it in himself to care if it does disappear.

Dean had expected to stay at the bar for at least a couple of hours after their set. He figured they’d all want to be the center of attention for a while, they’d earned at least that much. He thought that Charlie and Benny would monopolize the crowds of fans that were swarming like ants around the green room door, that he might just have a few seconds to try and express to Cas just how he felt about that new song.

Dean keeps craning his neck to try and see towards the door, trying to see around the intimidatingly large security they have blocking the hall from the literally ravenous fans trying to get a glimpse of the band of the hour.

“You look like a fangirl,” Jo points out, also standing on her tiptoes and looking at her phone impatiently.

“So do you,” Dean retorts, checking his on phone, “Oh fuck, I have a text from Benny.”

“What’s it say?”

“Fuck it, let’s go home.”

She, Dean, and Sam all stare at each other, before scrambling to pay their meager tab and walk nonchalantly out the door, didn’t want any of the circling vultures to pick up on them leaving and try to follow them or something.

Benny, Charlie, and Cas are all standing in the dimly lit alley next to the bar, Cas smoking his shitty cigarettes, Benny and Charlie berating him for smoking. The usual.

“They loved that song, moron, if you rupture your vocal chords because of this shit I’m kicking your ass into the sound and letting you drown.”

“Let me have this vice.”

“It’s cancer in a fucking cylinder, you’re a singer.”

“Quitting is my New Year’s Resolution.”

“Yeah,” Benny scoffs, “Just like it was last year.”

“I see things are going well out here,” Dean breaks into the argument with ease. One of the many benefits of having friends that are more family than anything else is that he can just butt into arguments to break them up. It had worked for years.

“Well they’re famous now,” Jo grins at them, throwing her arm around Charlie’s shoulders, “A little band strife has never hurt anybody.”

“That was pretty crazy,” Benny leans against the wall, staring at the wall of the bar like he can see through it, “we came out here because they warned us about the crowd.”

“I figured y’all would want some of the attention,” Dean confesses, leaning across from Benny next to Cas, pressing their shoulders together.

“In theory that attention sounds great,” Charlie shakes her head, “but really I feel like I’d just be suffocated.”

“So what’s the plan then?”

“Grab the gear, Uber back to the hotel, order room service and pay per view.”

“You’re speaking my language.”

Dean and Cas walk to a convenience store when they drop everything off at the hotel, with Cas threatening to shave Charlie’s head if she threw his bass around, to pick up some beers for their big night in.

Dean struggles to find the words as their boots hit the freezing pavement, their breath rising and falling in waves of fog in front of them in the frigid December air.

“So that new song.”

Cas’ eyes snap to him, bright and interested.

“Yeah? Tell me.”

“Fuck Cas, that was seriously your best. Like, seriously.”

He’s not doing it justice, he doesn’t know how to find the words to say what he wants to say, to figure out how to say that he needed to hear it again and again and again on repeat until he knew every note, and maybe that wouldn’t even be enough.

“You really liked it?” Cas looks a little shy, looking up at Dean from the corners of his eyes.

“Like it? I’m really not doing it justice with words man. It’s incredible.”

“I’m glad you like it. I worked out the melody with you in mind.”

Those words shouldn’t make warmth spread like warm honey through his veins but they do, and he can feel the heat of his blush stinging the cold air around him. He grins at his own feet, not wanting to give away how pleased he was.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

Dean insists on buying the beer when they get to the blessedly warm convenience store down the block from the hotel, though his face was still a little warm from Cas’ words. Cas doesn’t put up too much of a fight, and keeps smiling at Dean in a way that makes Dean feel like he’s consumed a fifth of whiskey. His fingers are all tingly.

Dean’s arms are full of beer on the way back, but the impulse in his fingers to touch Cas hasn’t abated by the time they get back to Jo and Charlie’s room, ignoring Benny’s grumbles of them taking way too long, to card his hand through Cas’ hair and run his hand down his arm. He hopes he isn’t imagining that Cas leans into the touch.

Dean spends most of the night just watching Cas, who has passed out on his shoulder, watching the flickering images of the sitcom he had put on when everyone but him had fallen asleep flicker across his face, and try desperately the wrestle the feelings he didn’t want to acknowledge back into the tiny jar he kept them in, ignoring the cracks that were starting to form on the glass.


	10. The Chain

The gig is all they talk about for weeks afterward. Even all through Christmas, Charlie, Benny, and Cas talk about it every chance they can. Dean feels like things with Cas are bubbling just below a boiling point, but even he doesn’t really know what he wants out of it, so letting it boil over isn’t wise. So he just soaks up the time he gets with Cas, whether that’s watching every Christmas movie on Dean’s “must watch” list, or helping Jo bake three-dozen cookies on Christmas Eve. He tries not to read into anything, but it goes about as well as it had been going since his breakup with Lisa, which is to say, not very well.

Christmas shapes up to be the same chaotic affair it is every year. It’s tradition to cram themselves into Ellen’s living room, with her Christmas tree twinkling and the same records that skip and crackle and add to the overall air of tradition of the whole thing.

Dean spends another two full days cooking his Christmas meal. Cas dyes his hair red and green with Dean’s help on Christmas Eve.

Dean’s noticed that his bathroom is the danger zone when he and Cas were together. Whether they were dyeing his hair or simply moving past each other in the morning, the proximity heightened the tension to an astronomical level, so Dean feels like the air is thinner when they’re there together. His heart races when he touches Cas’ hair, and he finds himself almost hoping that Charlie or Jo or Sam or Benny will burst in with some dumb joke or question so that the bubble will burst and he’ll be able to put his head on straight. Most of the time, his touches linger around Cas’ hips, on the back of his neck. He feels like he can’t control himself, like his hands are magnets drawn to Cas’ skin. 

He’s addicted to the heat, the lines and ridges and colorful ink on his shoulders and his sides, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep his hands to himself, especially since Cas leans into every touch, no matter how soft or fleeting they are. Sometimes he even makes these soft little huffing noises, and that’s enough to break Dean’s resolve into pieces like powdered glass, but somehow, someway, he holds strong. Fear will do that to you.

He’s drunk by noon on Christmas day, and he’s lucky that Ellen is as good with a turkey as he is, or he would’ve definitely fallen asleep in front of the TV, with Jo, Charlie, and Benny playing a game of Sorry beside him, Cas’ hands carding idly through his hair, the sounds of Barbara Streisand’s Christmas album playing gently in the background.

They exchange gifts after dinner, and Dean is sober enough to stay awake, especially since he was so excited to give everyone their gifts. Dean is a great gift-giver. He may be chronically late and terrible at returning texts, but he knows how to pick up shit that his friends will like.

Cas loves his otter, and Dean gets a watch with sharks on it from Charlie. He wears it proudly every day.

On New Year’s Eve, around ten minutes to midnight, the whole gang has congregated in the bar, and Ellen, Jo, Benny, Sam, and Charlie are gathered around the TV, watching the countdown until the ball drop in New York. Dean thinks that New Year’s is a little hokey, but he does love the Rose Parade (okay so he loves parades, sue him). He and Cas are sitting at the bar, not talking, just quietly drinking their drinks of choice (straight whiskey for Dean and gin and tonic for Cas) and listening to the chatter next to them.

Dean has stripped off the hideous Christmas sweater that Sam had given him after his second glass of whiskey. His cheeks felt flushed and warm, and he wanted an excuse to press his skin against Cas’ arm. You know, in a totally platonic, non-weird way.

Cas leans against him as he reaches for more ice, and Dean tries not to look at the skin of his neck, which is slightly shiny from sweat and flushed this intoxicatingly pretty pink color. Dean has to physically stop himself from leaning forward and kissing the tendons and the muscles that contract and relax as Cas laughs at a joke that Dean doesn’t even remember telling.

Cas throws a look over at the rest of the group, still loudly laughing at the TV and at Benny downing shots of coconut rum like it’s nothing. His eyes flick back to Dean, then drag up and down his body, and the tips of Dean’s fingers start aching. They tingle like they want to touch and take and possess.

He can tell he’s balanced more precariously on the edge of the knife than ever before, but he’s too drunk on the whiskey and the weight of Cas’ eyes to care much about that right now.

“Okay, you have to tell me something,” Cas breaks the silence, an almost pensive look on his face.

Dean swigs the last of his whiskey and reaches behind the bar for the bottle. It’s New Year’s Eve, he’s allowed.

“I don’t have to tell you shit.”

Cas pushes on his arm playfully, and Dean definitely doesn’t miss the contact the second that it’s gone.

“What’re the qualities of the next Lisa for you? What do we need to be on the lookout for?”

Dean nearly chokes.

Where the fuck did this come from?

“What-”

“Like looks Dean. Looks, personality, I don’t know, kinks? Like what are we searching for for you?”

Dean hesitates, because he needs more than anything to ignore his gut reaction, because that was going to get him in a world of trouble that he is fully not prepared to deal with.

“I don’t know, dark hair, tall,” broad shoulders, he thinks, dyed hair, delicate hands, “someone nice I guess.”

It sounds lame even to him, but he’s not about to just roll over on this question, it’s a little too loaded for him and he thinks Cas knows that, but he’s always been great at pulling shit out of Dean that he didn’t want to deal with.

“Masterfully evading the last part of the question,” Cas arches an eyebrow, stirring his disgusting gin and tonic with the little straw that they gave him. Dean watches the ice clink against the cheap glass, sorta wishing he could melt right along with it.

He shrugs, Cas keeps pushing.

“Come on, you told me one thing you’re into that one time, we barely scratched the surface,” he lifts Dean’s chin up, making their eyes connect, “I know there’s a kinky bastard in there somewhere, and if I’m going to find your next six year disaster, I need to know what you’re into. I kinda can’t believe that I don’t already know, but you’re such a prude when it comes to talking about it.”

Dean blushes, knowing that Cas is going to press on this button until something happens. He sighs. Fucking relentless, with his hair and his eyes and his hands and his shoulders.

“I told you, I guess choking maybe?”

“Don’t ask, tell me.”

Dean closes his eyes, he just responds.

“I want someone to choke me. Like, hard.”

It sounds stupid, childish to say it out loud, like he thought it was going to be some big confession or some big moment, but even though he had spent more than one sleepless night thinking about exactly what his kinks were, now it kinda seemed stupid, especially stupid to be saying it out loud, and even stupid to be saying it out loud to Cas. 

Cas had said once that he only tolerated vanilla sex with Dean, and Dean had often wondered why that was, always too shy or too nervous or too chickenshit to ask him. And now here they were, a little too drunk and a little too loose from it, brushing shoulders and fingers and toes and Dean can feel the heated flush creeping up his neck.

“Why do you only tolerate vanilla sex when it’s with me?”

Well. That was bold.

Cas stares at him for a solid ten seconds before composing himself enough to answer.

“Well first and foremost I don’t want to pressure you into anything. That’s my number one thing, I wouldn’t want you to ever be uncomfor-”

“And the other reason?”

Cas pauses again, looking down at the shiny bar and flicking the head of an empty beer bottle with his finger. Dean waits.

“Because it’s the best sex I’ve ever had and I don’t care if it’s vanilla if it’s with you.”

Someone must have set a fire, the air is being sucked out of the place. Their eyes are locked, blue and green staring at each other, and Dean cannot breathe, he cannot breathe. He doesn’t care that Charlie and Benny and Ellen and Jo are there. He doesn’t care that Sam is there, he doesn’t care that they have an agreement and he doesn’t care that he’s supposed to be straight.

Right on cue, the sixty second countdown to the new year begins. The others are still crowded around the TV, all wearing stupid hats and sunglasses with streamers and kazoos and all the other campy shit that Ellen had picked up from the Party City across town. And Dean finds himself moving forward without permission, feeling heavy and warm and like he needed Cas, like if he didn’t get him he wouldn’t survive it. Fuck the agreement, fuck their pact, fuck the fact that Dean is straight, he wants Cas.

Ten.

His nose is bumping Cas’ jaw.

Nine.

He can feel Cas’ rapid pulse under his fingers.

Eight.

His eyes go to Cas’ lips.

Seven.

He bites his own lips.

Six.

Cas curls a hand around his forearm.

Five.

Dean struggles to draw in a breath.

Four.

Cas stands up.

Three.

Their chests are flush.

Two.

Cas cards his hands through Dean’s hair, pulling him closer.

One.

Their lips crash together with enough force to flatten a small town, at least that’s what Dean thinks anyway.

It could’ve gone on for hours, but it’s really only a couple of seconds before Cas is pulling them apart, placing a steadying hand on Dean’s chest as Dean chases his lips. 

“Happy New Year!” Charlie calls over to them, “Come on, let’s get a picture.”

Dean and Cas are both breathing hard, but no one seems to suspect what just happened, they weren’t paying attention to the steadiest couple in the room, the constants, the ones that never changed.

The picture turns out great, and Ellen loudly tells them all that it’ll get framed and go behind the bar.

Dean ducks out as soon as he can escape, needing the cold air on his face for a second, even just to sober up. Of course, because they’re one in the same, he finds Cas out there too, in nothing but a tank top and sweatpants and sliders, smoking a cigarette and staring at the dark sky, only warmed with light pollution of the bustling town. Snow is starting to fall and it’s bitterly cold, Dean has no idea how Cas isn’t turning into an icicle before his very eyes.

They don’t say anything, Cas merely hands Dean his cigarette, which Dean gratefully accepts. Even though he hates them, this seems like one of those times. He takes a drag and coughs, hating the bitter taste of nicotine and tar almost as much as he hates this silence that stretches for miles into an unseen ocean between them.

“So,” Cas is the one to finally break the silence, leaning against the brick wall of the alley separating Ellen’s from the bad Italian place they got take out from three times a week.

“So,” Dean pans back, reaching out for another drag of Cas’ rapidly dwindling cigarette.

Cas is staring at Dean with a funny look on his face, which is weird because Dean knows every single one of Cas’ expressions, so to surprise him is kinda like surprising the dictionary with a new word: it just doesn’t happen.

“Come here,” Cas tosses away his cigarette and says the words like an order, and Dean’s feet drag him forward, crashing into Cas, pressing him into the wall, kissing him with a voracity that normally came only in their dark bedrooms, not to be seen in the light of day. Dean is too drunk on Cas to care, only seeking more of Cas’ flush skin under his stupid thin tank top, licking his bottom lip until his mouth gasps open, kissing him with the kind of fervor that he only kissed him with every other time they kissed. 

Cas’ hands are tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, twisting in an impossibly pleasurable, painful way. Dean groans as Cas presses their hips together, trying to push a knee in between Dean’s legs. Dean relents with too much ease, eager to fuck Cas right here in the dirty alley of his apartment on New Year’s day, ringing in the new year with his favorite pastime, making Cas make _those_ noises in the back of his throat.

He’s just about to rip Cas’ tank top to shreds when he hears Sam calling,

“Dean!”

He and Cas break apart milliseconds before Sam and Jo burst through the door to the bar, spilling warm, honey-colored light onto the cold pavement where snow is beginning to collect.

“What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

“Nothing,” they say in unison, and Dean checks to make sure they’re not suspiciously close to one another. He’s still breathing pretty fast, he hopes it’s too dark for either Jo or Sam to notice.

“Well come back inside, Ellen’s making hot chocolate and we’re going to the roof to watch the fireworks.”

“You literally just said it was freezing,” Dean points out, seeing Jo narrow her eyes as she looks from Dean to Cas and back again. Fuck, she’s way too smart for her own good. He knows he’s going to get cornered about this later.

“Yeah, but there isn’t hot chocolate out here. Now come on,” Sam waits expectantly for Dean by the door, and Dean takes a quick glance at Cas before heading inside the blessedly warm bar, trying not to think about what would have happened if they hadn’t come outside.


	11. Riot

They don’t talk about it.

Jo leaves the next week to go back to college in California, and enlists Dean to take her to the airport in Providence on Saturday. Charlie and Ellen offer to tag along, but she waves them down, telling them that summer will be here before they know it.

The drive itself is great, Jo and Dean have the same taste in music, so they vibe to Zeppelin all the way to the airport. Dean even parks to walk Jo in, which he normally doesn’t do because he fucking hates airports and air travel of any kind. There’s a reason that their trip to Wyoming the summer Dean graduated from college was a road trip. No planes. He hated planes.

Jo turns to hug him before she goes to check her bags, and when she pulls back, he can tell they’re about to get to the reason why she didn’t want Charlie and Ellen coming with them.

“I’ll miss you, kid,” he kisses the top of her head and she doesn’t push him away, even though she hates when he calls her kid.

“I’ll miss you too,” she pauses, “take care of Cas.”

“Jo-” but she cuts him off before he can even start.

“I don’t need to hear anything about it. But I’m not blind. Everyone else can’t see it because they’re with you all the time. I’m not. I’m not gonna push, okay? But I’m here if you need me, yeah?”

Dean lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding.

“Okay.”

She gives him a swift kiss on the cheek before hurrying to the Southwest Airlines counter. And Dean waits until she heads to the security line before heading out to the Impala and paying ten dollars for parking less than thirty minutes. Fuck airports.

He takes some backroads when he gets off the highway to town, weaving in and out of the streets, watching people shopping or taking down their Christmas decorations. He doesn’t really know what to make of Jo’s parting words, but he was starting to think that he may not be as slick about his feelings, whatever they were, for Cas as he thought he was being. What a fucking shock, right?

It just all felt so weird, even weirder now after what had happened on New Years. They had never broken the agreement like that, not in the nearly ten years that it had been in place. That had always been something they did just for the couple of days after a breakup, and neither of them had ever felt the need for it again. Well, at least Dean hadn’t, he doesn’t know about Cas. But now? There was some shift, and Dean had no idea what instigated it. Yeah, sure, his breakup with Lisa, but they had broken up at least a dozen times, and nothing like this had ever happened.

He had touched Cas a million times, so why did his fingers suddenly itch when they were around each other? And it wasn’t getting easier, he had thought, maybe, that things would settle down when he had had time to grieve for his relationship with Lisa. But it felt like the volume was constantly being turned up, and the feedback on the speaker was background noise that drowned everything else out, working hard to push Dean towards something that he didn’t really understand, even if it was about Cas, who he had always thought he understood better than anyone.

Ugh. He hated feeling like this, like he was completely out of control with his emotions. Plus there was the simple fact that Cas is a man, and Dean is not attracted to men. He was taught that from a young age. It doesn’t matter that Cas was different than anyone he had ever known, what matters is that they’re best friends, you don’t fuck up best friendships for a crush, (which, that was all this was, Dean had gone over and over that with himself in the mirror), and Cas is a man, who he is not attracted to.

He’s so caught up in this spiral of thinking that he doesn’t even realize he’s pulled up to Cas’ house until he’s pulled into the parking spot by his place. The little place is being whipped by a cold wind from the north, the blue shutters rattling on their hooks and the little pride flag Cas had hanging on his porch was whipping in the breeze. Dean watches it for a while, not really sure he can move his legs to walk towards the door. Fuck, he’s being such a freak about this.

He’s lucky Cas works nine to five as a graphic designer and not shift work like Benny and Charlie, or else he could look like a real creep, pulling into Cas’ driveway when he wasn’t even home.

It’s too cold for him to be on the porch, so Dean sits and lets the car idle as he thinks about what he wants to do. What part of him wants is to knock on Cas’ door and not leave again until they were both well and truly fucked. And the other, more rational part of him wants to put the car in reverse and not ever talk to Cas about this ever. Okay, maybe both schools of thought are pretty irrational.

Dean has just decided to be a complete coward and leave without telling Cas he was here when Cas, as usual, takes matters out of his hands. He opens his front door and walks towards the Impala. Dean considers just leaving, maybe he won’t recognize his car? Okay, that’s the stupidest thought he’s ever had, and he’s had quite a few.

He rolls down his window as Cas approaches, grinning at him like everything was normal.

“Not even a call? What if I had a gentleman caller?”

“I just wanted to see if you wanted to catch a movie with me and the crew?”

Dean has no idea what’s even showing, the words came out of his mouth like he had actually come to Cas’ house for that reason, and not because he knew this was a safe place, even when he was running from the person in front of him.

“Sure, what movie?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t even ask them yet, I just got back from dropping off Jo.”

“Yeah? How was it? Hang on, hold please, I have to go put on actual clothes if we’re going back to yours.”

“You don’t though, we’re just going to the movies.”

Cas rolls his eyes and speed walks toward his door. Okay, he was wearing slides again, probably not the best for the middle of winter in Connecticut.

Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel, _Houses of the Holy_ playing quietly as he waited. He’s decided to be a coward and follow Cas’ lead in not talking about what happened. He doesn’t want things to change, and he doesn’t want to have to think about how he felt for longer than ten seconds.

Cas joins him a minute later, sliding into the passenger seat. 

“You wanna do the movie now? There’s a showing at the one here in like thirty minutes, that’s enough time to grab them if they want to come.”

“Yeah yeah, sounds good. What movie?”

“It’s some superhero thing I know Benny wanted to see.”

“Cool, will you call them? I don’t want to miss the movie because Charlie can’t decide if she should wear boots or flip flops in the middle of winter.”

“Don’t hate on the inappropriate footwear.”

“You’re going to get frostbite if you keep wearing slides, don’t you know that you live in the Northeast and not the Sahara desert?”

Cas smiles fondly at him and calls Charlie, Dean can hear her excitement through the phone, and she almost flies out the door when they pull up to Ellen’s.

“Dude,” she yells, clambering into her usual place in the middle of the backseat, “I am so pumped to see this movie. Me and Benny have been talking about it for weeks.”

“We really have,” Benny squeezes himself next to Charlie, “It’s supposed to be really good. Where did this come from, Dean?”

“Huh? Nowhere, just wanted to see a movie. Where’s Sam?”

“He’s coming, he was talking to Jessica I think.”

“God, we’re going to be late, he takes like ten years to say goodbye to her.”

Charlie hums the first few bars of “Puppy Love,” and they all laugh as Sam crams himself into the car, face a little red.

“How’s Jess?”

“She’s good, we were talking about colleges.”

The word makes Dean’s heart jump into his throat a little. It’s going to be so weird when Sam leaves for college. Especially because Jo has been selling him hard on the West Coast, and he’s mentioned Stanford more than once. Stanford. Like as in all the way across the country. Ugh.

“Ugh, colleges, when did you get so old?”

“I don’t know, I’m surprised you haven’t turned to dust by now.”

Cas gets a stitch in his side laughing at that, and Dean can’t kick him because, you know, he’s driving, so he has to settle for swatting at his head (he misses).

“You’re lucky I’m driving.”

“Ok, tough guy, whatever you say.”

“Now now children, don’t fight,” Charlie separates them with her hands, “Dean can you concentrate? I don’t want to die before we see this movie.”

“Are you insinuating that you would be okay with dying after the movie?” Benny asks, eyebrows raised at her.

“Sure, once I see Charlize Theron beat in a few heads I will be able to die happy.”

“I’m going to insist that you keep living after this movie Charlie,” Cas twists around to stare at her.

“I second that,” Sam pipes up.

“Thirded,” Benny punches her in the shoulder.

“Looks like you’re outnumber four to one, C,” Dean grins at her, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Wow you guys really saved me,” Charlie rolls her eyes, “Like I was going to just go into the void right when credits roll on this movie.”

“If someone dared you to find the void you’d do it.”

“Sure I would, depends on the payout though.”

Dean rolls his eyes, pulling into the parking lot of the movie theater with about ten minutes until the movie starts.

Cas gets the tickets while, Charlie, Benny, and Dean scope out the snacks. All overpriced, of course, but absolute necessities for any movie, especially an action movie. Dean gets a thing of popcorn the size of his car and Sour Patch Kids for Cas, since they’re his favorite.

“Why don’t you ever buy my snacks?” Charlie whines, staring at Dean paying for Sam and his snacks.

“Because you are an adult with a job and money. And money can be exchanged for goods and services.”

“You’re buying Cas’ snacks,” she points out. Dean’s ears turn a little red.

“He’s buying the tickets, the least I can do is repay the favor.”

Cas’ eyes are soft when Dean hands his snacks to him, and Dean can feel the little crackle of electricity he often feels when he and Cas almost touch. He continues to brush it off. He’s kinda like an ostrich, if he buries his head in the sand he won’t have to think about it.

Dean settles himself between Sam and Cas, stealing Sam’s popcorn whenever he thinks he isn’t looking, eventually getting caught with his hand in the popcorn bucket and getting a classic bitchface that he returns with a smile. Charlie is so excited she’s practically yelling in the nearly empty theater, and Benny has to shush her like five times to get her to whisper her theories to him instead of yell them for the whole world to hear. 

Dean tries to steal a Sour Patch Kid from Cas and ends up nearly punching the box across the theater.

“Will you ever learn any manners?”

“No, especially if you don’t give me a Sour Patch Kid.”

“You are a child,” Cas whispers as the lady a couple of rows in front of them turns around to judge them.

“That’s true, but at least I’m cute.”

“You’re very cute, that’s why I put up with you.”

“I knew it, you just like me for my body. And here I thought you liked me for my charming personality.”

Cas hands him a couple of Sour Patch Kids.

“Unfortunately I like you for both, so looks like I’m really in deep.”

“Guess you can’t get rid of me then.”

Before Cas can say anything, Charlie cuts in,

“Can you two stop flirting for ten seconds so I can watch this movie, I want to see my girlfriend.”

“Charlize Theron isn’t your girlfriend,” Dean points out, putting inches of space between him and Cas almost unconsciously, like they had been caught.

“And Ana de Armas isn’t yours, but you don’t see me raining on your parade.”

“Okay, that was a low blow-” Dean starts, but Charlie slaps a hand over his mouth as the lights dim and the opening credits blare across the screen.

The movie is actually really good, Dean always forgets that he actually really loves these superhero movies until he actually watches them, and Benny, predictably, makes them stay until the very end of the credits for a ten second scene.

Charlie and Benny animatedly discuss everything from the lighting to very specific lines on the way home, and continue their discussion as Dean cooks them all dinner (nothing fancy, just some burgers that he can make in the pan and some frozen tater tots because he’s a culinary master).

The movie was just what he needed, he thinks later that night, as he gives Cas a ride home so he can get a couple of hours of sleep before they both work in the morning. He puts the car in park next to Cas’ door, trying to minimize how far he has to walk to his door, but Cas doesn’t get out immediately. He turns to Dean, looking almost shy.

“What?”

“You wanna come in?”

Dean’s stomach drops to his shoes. He hasn’t stayed at Cas’ house since…

“Uh,” he clears his throat, feeling his face heat up like a hot skillet, “Not tonight Cas, I gotta get Sam going in the morning.”

Cas just sighs and smiles softly. He reaches out and traces the line of Dean’s jaw with one warm finger. Dean shudders.

“Okay, I can wait.”

He slides out of the car and looks back at Dean before he slides into his house. Dean feels like he can’t breathe the whole way home.

Dean turns in early, and actually sleeps well for the first time in what feels like months. But, despite his good sleep, Jo’s words still echo in the back of his head, and even burying it in the sand can’t drown them out forever.


	12. All Around Me

Sam is back in school the next week, and Dean is back to running around like a chicken with its head cut off. He goes right from work to help Sam with his increasingly difficult Calculus homework, make him dinner, force him to get off of Facetime with Jessica at 11pm, and make sure he doesn’t grow so fast that he punches through the roof which, let’s face it, he’s getting close to doing.

The benefit to this is that he doesn’t have time to worry about the big Thing, so everything just sort of slides right back to normal, which is fine by Dean. The less conflict in his life the better.

Cas comes over for dinner at least three nights a week after work, Dean buys earplugs for their practice on Thursdays, Charlie tries to plan a surprise birthday party for his thirty-first birthday, which Benny and Cas thankfully put a stop to, and Dean feels like he’s wrinkling before his own eyes when he looks in the mirror on the 24th of January. (It takes ten full minutes of affirmations from Cas for him to be able to face his birthday at all).

Dean still thinks about Cas all the time, which is healthy and fine.

“Y’all may have gotten out of a party for Dean’s birthday, but we are _so_ throwing one for mine,” Charlie informs Benny and Dean over breakfast the week before her 27th birthday.

“That so? What did you have in mind?”

“Keep in mind,” Dean points a forkful of oatmeal at her menacingly, “We have a minor in the house.”

“No problem, Sam already told me he’s going to be studying with a friend the night I’m planning on having it.”

“How is it that you know shit about my brother’s life before I do?”

“Because I will never judge him for anything, as I have no doubt done much worse.”

“Pssh, whatever. You asked him to stay the night at a friend’s house, didn’t you?”

Charlie waves him away.

“That’s beside the point. The point is my party,”

“The point is you not burning down the place so we all have a place to stay,” Benny grins at her.

“There won’t be any arson, Benny, only a metric ton of alcohol and questionable decisions.”

“So a normal Saturday night for you?”

“You are being such haters, I was going to ask you who you wanted to invite.”

“We get a say in the guest list?” Benny looks surprised.

“Yes, because I am the most generous person in the world.”

“Then I want the guys from the bakery to come over.”

“Sure yes, I like them,” Charlie is typing away furiously on her phone, “Okay Dean, who for you? Anyone from the plant?”

“Nah, those guys are all older, I don’t think they’d be interested.”

“Okay so…anyone?”

“Uh, well I assume Cas is on the list, but other than him not really.”

Charlie sighs and shakes her head.

“You remind me of an eighty-year-old sometimes.”

“I like being an old man, you get more sleep that way.”

“Okay old man, well just be ready, it’s going down in a week.”

“Because we’re hosting a party does that mean we don’t have to get you anything for your birthday?”

“Absolutely not Benny, no gift, no entry.”

“It’s my house!”

“ _No gift, no entry_.”

“You’re a shithead,” Benny laughs, and Charlie’s façade breaks almost immediately.

“Dude I’m excited, we haven’t had a huge party in forever.”

“I’m already tired.”

“Okay grumpy, go to work at your massively powerful nuclear plant that can destroy us all and be ready to throw down next week.”

_________

The week goes by far too quickly for Dean’s liking, but he does get Charlie a pretty sick replica of the One Ring from _Lord of the Rings_ , so he’s pretty happy with that. He’s sure she’ll like it.

When Dean gets home that night after dropping off Sam at his friend’s house, Dean can hear the thrumming beat of the party from the garage in the back of the building. He shakes his head as he sees the multicolored lights coming from the apartment’s windows. Charlie’s birthday was always a huge party, and this year didn’t appear to be any different. She really wasn’t fucking around with this one.

The apartment is packed to bursting with people, and it’s already ten degrees hotter than normal. Charlie seems to know everyone in town, and it didn’t seem like she neglected to invite anybody.

He spots her in her yellow jacket and blue Docs from across the room, and fights his way through the throng of people to scoop up a beer and give her a hug.

“You are so lucky you convinced Sam to do some AP prep at his friend’s house tonight, this is insane Charlie.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it, we never get to have parties like this, and it’s my fucking birthday,” Charlie yells at him over the noise of the speakers blaring from the TV and the at least thirty people packed into their apartment, all drinking and eating and yelling over the music.

“I hate you so much. Happy birthday,” he yells at her, and she grins before sprinting off to the jungle juice container, which had to be the size of a small boat.

Dean squeezes his way through the crowd, recognizing almost everyone but not wanting to interrupt any conversations. Benny was chatting with some friends from his work at the bakery, while Charlie and her friends from the comic shop she worked at were already working on clearing some space for a dance floor. Dean decides his best plan of action is to jam himself into a corner until it was okay for him to sneak into his room and lock the door. Damn, he really was becoming an old man.

This plan works very well for a solid half an hour, he scrolls mindlessly through Instagram, drinks more than he usually would (or probably should, it’s like he hit thirty one and immediately started getting hungover off of like two beers), and watches Charlie take a bodyshot off a girl he’s relatively sure she met on Tinder. Until someone is in his personal space, and he’s about to cringe away from them before he recognizes the mix of shampoo and cheap cigarettes.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Dean asks Cas, leaning into his ear to make sure he could hear him.

“I went to go pick up more liquor, but I don’t think they’ll need it,” he points to where the majority of people have gathered, all jumping up and down with such force that Dean was sure they were going to break through the floor.

“That’s literally the last thing we need.”

Cas laughs, throwing back his head and leaning into Dean at the same time. It’s fine. Dean isn’t thinking about New Year’s at all. Cas was in one of his tank tops, which had armholes so big it was less of a tank top and more of a poncho. But it did give Dean unfettered access to staring at Cas’ arms, which he would never complain about.

“What are the odds someone goes to the ER before dawn?” Cas is leaning on him now, holding a Mike’s Hard Lemonade which, though Dean often scoffs at these for being a bitch drink, they are a damn good bitch drink.

“I’d say 100%,” Dean pulls the bottle from his hand and takes a swig, dodging out of the way as Cas tries to grab it back.

It all happens really fast.

His back hits the wall and Cas is pressed up against him, reaching for the bottle that Dean is holding over his head. He reflects, at a later date, that neither of them really realized what was happening until it was too late.

Dean realizes he can’t really hear the music anymore, instead there’s a dull ringing in his ears as he looks at Cas, who has stopped moving for the bottle and is simply pressed against Dean, his hands on either side of the wall behind them, locking them in place. Dean can feel the thrum of their heartbeats through Cas’ sorry excuse for a shirt, and he can feel the heat of his body, his breathing.

Cas leans up, experimentally, slowly, like Dean is a startled deer, make a sudden move and he’ll bolt. There’s probably a lot of truth to that. Cas’ lips brush the shell of Dean’s ear, then the side of his jaw, then the ridge of his collarbone. Dean feels like he can’t breathe. But his brain has disconnected, and he straightens up. Cas, backs up immediately, thinking he’s gone too far, but Dean leans forward, grabs Cas’ hand, and drags him as fast as he can towards his bedroom.

Dean’s shirt is on the floor before the door even slams shut, and Cas takes care to lock it before throwing his own shirt on the floor with Dean’s. Dean strides forward and kisses Cas with a heat that surpasses even the New Year’s kiss, which nearly set Dean’s whole body on fire. This was like a bomb, not a fire, like a stick of dynamite had been lit in Dean’s chest, and the fuse had been running from the second they realized they were pressed together. Now, the dynamite had exploded, and Dean was ravenous, ravenous for every single inch of Cas he could get his hands on.

Cas is more than eager to help, and his hands are already working Dean’s pants off while his tongue licks a hot stripe from Dean’s neck to his shoulder. Dean is inwardly thankful that the music and the party are so loud, there is simply no chance that either of them are going to be quiet. His point is made when he mouths at the spot under Cas’ ear and he groans loudly enough to wake a whole city block.

It's hard and fast, Dean scrambles for the condoms and the lube he keeps in his bedside table, even though he hasn’t brought anyone home in years. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that this would happen.

They’re making way too much noise, but Dean can’t keep it in. Cas is just so fucking good and he’s all Dean wants and he moves in all the right ways and knows just what to say and just how to move and just how to make Dean come undone in his hands. And Dean doesn’t know if that’s because they’re best friends or because of something else, and he doesn’t really know how it happens, but he says one of those things that he’s not supposed to say out loud.

“Fuck Dean, yeah…yeah.”

“Fuck I love you.”

Cas stops. Dean is pretty sure the world stops turning. Oh shit.

“Like…” Dean cannot save this, he knows that, he casts around wildly for an excuse anyway, but Cas, after his momentary pause, continues moving, and whispers.

“Fuck me, Dean.”

And Dean does, even though his heart is racing and he’s relatively certain that he cannot breathe again, but he swears it’s the best orgasm he’s had in years.

And then it’s over and…shit.

Cas turns around to look at him, and he can’t hide anything from Cas, he had never been that good of a liar anyway. He couldn’t lie like this to Cas. Was it a lie though? The words were alien even to him, he wasn’t sure where they were coming from, he didn’t know what to do, what to say, what to even fucking feel, but again, Cas takes matters out of his hands. He slides under the covers of Dean’s bed and waits expectantly for Dean to take his place, like they had been doing it for years. Which, they had to be fair, just with clothes on.

Dean is suddenly scared shitless. This was the second time that wasn’t part of the agreement. This was the second time, and Dean feels like they may have stepped over a line they can’t cross back over. But he’s still a little drunk, on cheap beer and on Cas, so he slides into bed without another word, letting Cas kiss him quietly, sweetly, until they both fall asleep.


	13. Alone In This Bed (Capeside)

Dean has fully lost control of the situation. The morning after Charlie’s party he gets up before Cas, gets dressed, and leaves before they can talk about it. Cas calls him a few times, but he lets it go to voicemail. He’s gotta get some space from this, he has to think about what the fuck he’s doing, because he’s been thinking with his heart, not his head too much lately. Or maybe too much with his head and not his heart? Either way, he’s fucking confused, and being with Cas would just make him more confused. And that fucking sucks, because he’s never had that problem before, not with Cas. Normally, he would be coming to Cas first with these feelings, asking what he thought they meant, what he should do, what the best way forward was. But now things were _changing_ , things were _different_ , and Dean doesn’t feel like he can look in the mirror and recognize himself. That scares the shit out of him.

So, once again, Dean decides to be a motherfucking coward. He decides to keep Cas at arm’s length going forward. He couldn’t risk what they had going right now. Because, look, let’s say he and Cas start dating, and it’s great for a while, and then Dean does something to fuck it up, and they break up. What then? Then the whole group would be split into sides, Dean on one side, Cas on the other. Who would Benny and Charlie choose? It wasn’t just them that are involved in this mess, it’s their whole lives, their friends, the people they love and spend all their time with too. And Dean has Sam to think about too, if something like that happened, a breakup or whatever, and it changed things for Sam, put stress on him, Dean wouldn’t forgive himself.

He tells himself that maybe things could be different when Sam went to college next year, but he knows, realistically, that they won’t be. Not only would Cas not wait for him (and he would never ask him to, anyway), but Dean is _straight_. He wonders sometimes if other people have to remind themselves of that fifty times a day, because he sure as hell does.

Dean starts hooking up with people again, and so does Cas. Tinder is his new best friend, but he never hooks up with girls with dark hair and blue eyes. They’re a little more stilted with one another for a while, which gets Charlie and Benny on red alert, but that eventually melts away. They can’t stay away from each other for long, and Dean, selfishly, is grateful for that.

Dean works hard, makes more friends in the old guys at work, sorta starts to feel like he knows what he’s doing (which is a good thing when you work in the US’s largest nuclear power plant). He and the gang help Sam with homework, watch movies, make dinner. Cas is always there, and Dean makes absolutely certain that their hands don’t touch anymore, because he can’t handle the electricity he feels with Cas, that he doesn’t feel with any of the girls he goes home with on the weekends.

He feels like he’s got a tenuous hold on things, like maybe this could be the new normal, even if he knows that Charlie and Benny and even Sam see through him, he’s gotten a balance on the edge of the knife. He can live with this.

Of course, right when he gets that balance, an invisible force pushes him.

Dean is woken up in the middle of the night by his phone’s blaring ringtone (“Kashmir” by Zeppelin because he knows what taste is). Damn, he really needs to start putting it on do not disturb, it’s 3am on a Friday, why would anyone be calling him at this hour? Don’t they know he has fucking work in five hours?

He doesn’t recognize the number, but when he picks up, he’s asked if he wants to accept the charges of someone in the city jail. City jail? What the fuck did Charlie do now?

“Dean?” a rough voice that he knows immediately says, “Dean, are you there?”

Cas?

“Cas?” Dean is incredulous, he cannot comprehend why Cas would be calling him from jail. From jail??

“Hey,” the relief in Cas’ voice is palpable, bleeding through the phone lines, “Thanks for picking up, I know it’s late. Uh, so I have a problem.”

“Yeah? You’re in jail?”

“Uh. Yeah. Can you come get me? Contact Adrian, that bail bondsman I know? If he won’t let you get off with my word I swear I’ll pay you back. They’re holding me for three grand so-”

“Three grand? What the fuck-”

“It’ll be three hundred to him, I can get you the cash tomorrow-”

“Cas what-”

“Please Dean?”

“Yeah, yeah of course. I’ll be right there, I’ll call Adrian.”

Dean calls Adrian, pays him the three-hundred dollars, reminds himself to tell Cas that Adrian is a prick, and then waits outside the jail for Cas’ arraignment. The arraignment isn’t until nine, so he calls into work with an “emergency personal day” and drums his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for Cas to make an appearance.

He does so at 10 am, looking disheveled and not at all panicked, which is the opposite of what Dean is honestly expecting here. He’s dressed in too tight ripped jeans and a shirt that clearly says he was getting fucked, which sort of pisses Dean off, but he doesn’t have a right to be pissed off about that. Cas makes a beeline straight for him and collapses in the passenger seat of the car, slamming the door of the Impala shut.

“Thank you Dean, I really can’t thank you enough.”

Dean doesn’t say anything as he pulls out of the parking spot and starts heading towards Cas’ place. Cas tries to make conversation, but Dean doesn’t really respond, this was not a conversation that they could have while he was driving.

Cas’ house looks cold, uninviting, but Dean wastes no time taking in his surroundings, rounding on Cas the second he shuts the door.

“What the fuck happened?”

Cas scrubs a hand over his face, tossing down the plastic evidence bag with his phone, wallet, and keys on his kitchen table. He sinks down in a kitchen chair before answering, like he’s weighing every word.

“So, uh, I punched a guy.”

“And that warrants a three-thousand-dollar bail?”

“No. But it does if the guy you punch is an on-duty cop.”

Dean closes his eyes at Cas’ words.

“You cannot be that stupid.”

Cas eyes flick up at him, but Dean is getting angrier by the second.

“It’s not that simple-” he starts, but Dean interrupts.

“Then simplify it.”

“We, um, we’re sleeping with each other, and he said some shit I didn’t agree with, it got heated, and I hit him. But he was on duty so he took me in.”

Dean can only blink at Cas, unable to believe what he’s hearing.

“You were fucking a cop while he’s on duty and then you punched him in the face? What the fuck Cas?”

“Oh don’t be so melodramatic Dean-”

“Don’t be so melodramatic? Are you kidding me Cas? Why the fuck were you sleeping with a cop anyway, you’re always saying how much you hate them. It’s like you do this shit just for the fucking attention.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, he looks at the floor, trying to deflect the question, but Dean wasn’t having it.

“Cas?”

“At least it makes me interesting.”

“Makes you interesting? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that I hide the fact that I’m fucking boring by being in a punk band and dyeing my hair thirty different colors and having piercings and tattoos. I do it because I’m boing, and I’m terrified that one day everyone is going to figure that out, they’re going to figure out that I’m not worth shit and that I’m fucking boring, and then they’ll…”

He trails off, trying to deflect again.

“Then they’ll what? They’ll what Cas?”

“They’ll leave,” Cas says quietly.

Dean stops, fully stops in his tracks, because the words are so soft, they’re so…pained, it’s not anything he’s ever seen from Cas, and he thought he had seen everything from Cas.

“I haven’t.”

Cas sighs, looking at Dean with something like hope in his eyes.

“Yeah, you haven’t, but that doesn’t mean you won’t.”

“Can you give me some fucking credit here? I bailed you out of jail at three in the morning, I took your call, I’m sitting here listening to you be down on yourself for punching a cop that you’re sleeping with in the face while he’s on duty because you’re boring. Can you just cut the shit?”

“This isn’t shit Dean, this is what it is.”

Anger is bubbling in Dean’s gut again, because Cas talking this way is just wrong, he shouldn’t feel this way, not when he’s…anything but boring, fuck, he’s everything. He’s literally everything and Dean doesn’t know how to say that, he doesn’t know how to tell Cas that, how to put his heart out there and not get it shattered into ten million pieces.

Dean wants to say that Cas is the most interesting person he’s ever known, the way he plays music, the way he laughs at something, the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles really wide, the way his blue eyes turn dark when he’s turned on, the way he sings off key when he’s drunk, the way he giggles when he’s high, the way he dances when he thinks no one’s watching, the shitty shampoo he uses, the way he judges Dean for his taste in TV, but will watch the same bad horror movie fifteen times and get scared every time, no matter how many times he knows the jumpscares are coming. The way he kisses Dean, the way he tastes sweet no matter what he’s had in his mouth previously, the way he can find every single pulse point and muscle that will turn Dean into a pile of jello, the way he runs his fingers through his ever changing rainbow of hair, the way he writes songs and poems on the back of bar napkins, slipping them into his pocket for later, the way he looks so relaxed when he plays, even though he plays some of the most intense music Dean has ever heard. The idea that he isn’t interesting, the idea that he doesn’t think he’s interesting, the idea that he needs a cop to fuck and then punch in the face, the idea that he needs jail to think of himself as interesting is just absurd, it doesn’t compute in Dean’s brain, he wishes he could tell him that. Fuck, he wishes he could tell him that he loved him, because he does, more than anything. He loves Cas, he loves everything about Cas, from his details to his biggest parts.

He doesn’t know how the fuck to say that.

He shouldn’t be saying that.

Cas sighs heavily, watching Dean, sizing him up.

“What?”

“What are we doing?”

Dean looks around the room.

“Standing in your house after you got arrested and I bailed you out for punching a cop.”

“No Dean. You and me. What are we doing?”

Dean’s stomach drops to the floor.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Cas takes a step towards him, always so in control of who he was, of what he wanted. It sort of made Dean mad.

“This thing we have, this ‘agreement’ that’s breaking down by the day. Why don’t we just call it what it is?”

This is what he wants. Right? Isn’t this what he was just thinking that he wanted?

“What is it?”

What is he saying? He knows what it is.

Cas takes another step towards him.

“We should just give this a shot. You and me, together. No on duty cops, no random girls in bars. No Tinder. You and me.”

_Yes_ , Dean’s heart says. 

_No_ , Dean’s brain replies.

He knows who he is. And that isn’t someone who can date a man. 

But wasn’t he in love with a man?

No.

Yes.

He doesn’t know anymore.

His brain takes over before his heart can.

“I’m straight, Cas.”

Cas laughs derisively in his face.

“Sorry Dean but, no you aren’t.”

Dean narrows his eyes at him.

“You’re the one that’s always talking about identity, why can’t you let me have mine? What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that you aren’t straight, Dean. You just aren’t. Can you pull your head out of your ass for ten seconds and fucking realize that?”

“You don’t have any-”

“Any proof? The fact that you come in two minutes when I fuck you? Or maybe just how good you are at giving head. Sorry to break it to you, but straight men don’t suck dick like you do.”

Dean scoffs, walking away from him.

“You just want to turn me gay.”

What? He didn’t mean to say that, can he take that back? He didn’t mean it like that.

Cas stares at him.

“I what?”

The words are coming from anger, half-forming in his mind then spilling out of his mouth.

“You want to turn me gay so I’ll, I’ll fall in love with you or something,”

Too late for that, he thinks to himself, but he needed to say something that was going to hurt Cas, push Cas out the door, even if it was a huge fucking lie. Which this, of course, was. His brain had made the decision. He felt like he didn’t have control.

“You’ve known me for twelve years, for twelve fucking years Dean. And you think that I’m trying to turn you gay? The whole agreement was your idea!”

“I did it to help you out.”

Cas’ eyebrows keep rising, soon enough they’ll be flying off his face.

“Then why did we keep doing it? Why have we been doing it for nine years? Why did you spend the whole weekend at my house when you broke up with Lisa? If you’re so afraid that I was going to turn you gay, then why did you come seek me out at 2 am when she broke up with you. Why am I the person that you come to with every problem, why did you kiss me on New Year’s, when both of us were single? Why did we fuck in your bedroom during a party, when again, both of us were single. Why did you tell me you loved me? Do you want me to say I won’t see you again? Are you trying to push me away? Like, what the fuck Dean, don’t you think I know you better than that, I can see what you’re doing, I know it’s a lie.”

“Fuck off Cas, just…fuck off.”

Cas stands there, hands on his hips, his lower jaw jutting out, clearly readying for a fight that Dean knew that he would lose if it came to it.

“Fine. Fine, but just don’t expect me to come help you clean up your messes.”

“Same goes for you, cop-fucker.”

Cas doesn’t even hesitate, he takes two steps forward and decks Dean in the jaw. Listen, Dean’s a strong guy, Dean is stockier than him and looks more built, but Cas is fucking strong and the blow is enough to knock Dean off balance, falling into Cas’ closet, which is probably an oxymoron or some kind of sick cosmic joke. He tastes blood, and his tongue darts out to assess the damage. Split lip.

“Go fuck yourself, Dean.”

Cas stomps out of the room and slams the door to the little blue house, and Dean is left with his heart rattling in his chest and the sinking, crushing realization that he had just done something incredibly stupid. All he can hear is waves.


	14. Break Stuff

“What happened to you?” Charlie inquires, eyes wide as she stares at Dean. He doesn’t say anything as he marches to the freezer to get an icepack. She follows his path and stands directly in front of him, not moving.

Damn, he thought he’d be by himself, he forgot Charlie had taken late shift on Fridays.

“Charlie, fucking please-”

“What happened to you?” she repeats, holding his face so he meets her eyes. She knew he couldn’t lie to her if he looked her in the eye.

“Cas and I had a fight,” he says evasively, hoping against hope that she’ll let him off with a half-truth. No such luck.

“Cas hit you? What happened? That doesn’t sound like a usual fight.”

He decides that it’s time to tell someone else about this, even though it violates that notarized document that they signed. Cas had suggested, all those years ago, that they sign it in blood, much to the bank teller’s horror.

“Cas and I…we uh…”

“You’re fucking aren’t you?”

Dean stares at her.

“How the fuck do you know that?”

She looks at him knowingly, guiding him over to the couch and settling down across from him.

“Come on Dean, you don’t really think that you’re subtle, do you? I mean clearly you weren’t _together_ , unless you have been this whole time and we just thought you were friends, but it was pretty clear you were…intimate.”

“Please, please never say that again. Never say that word again,” Dean groans, because it feels old school which he and Cas are definitely not. It also sorta makes him feel like they’re having an affair, which again, they aren’t.

“So you broke up or…” Charlie presses, and Dean sighs, knowing that he’s got to tell her everything now, and he has no idea how to do that. It had been something so secret, so precious between them, it felt wrong to tell anyone else about it, even though it was all moot now, he was pretty sure he was never going to be friends with Cas again anyway.

“You can tell me, Dean, I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“Yeah I, I don’t know, it’s just hard, because it’s not like…we’ve just always kept it under wraps, or we thought so anyway. We signed this thing.”

“Oh my god, you have an agreement in place? This is like _Fifty Shades of Grey_!”

“No it isn’t Charlie.”

“Uh yeah it is, did you get it signed by a lawyer?”

“No… we did get it notarized at a bank though.”

Charlie starts laughing in a way that nears hysteria, and Dean joins her, despite the throbbing pain in his lip, despite the fact that his chest felt empty and hollow, despite the fact that he wanted to get in his car and go straight over to Cas’ house and apologize. Maybe it was time that he and Cas spent some time apart. Maybe Lisa had been right, maybe they were too codependent.

“You have to tell me everything,” Charlie says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.

And Dean does, he tells her about Hannah,

“Oh shit I remember her, I never thought he was going to get over her.”

He tells her about the agreement, never talk about it, never let anyone know that it was in place, only sleep together after a breakup.

“Oh yeah, that’s a healthy way to cope, nice job Dean and Cas.”

The way it had become something that they almost looked forward to, the way that he had gone straight to Cas’ apartment when he broke up with Lisa, not only because they were best friends, but for something else as well.

“Jesus Dean, you’re needier than I am, and that’s saying something.”

The way they agreement had become blurred, or how they had stopped adhering to it after that, the way they had kissed on New Year’s, and then had slept together during her birthday party.

“I wondered where you guys went! This explains so much.”

And then they were at the meat of the issue, the why, the reason for the fight. Because Dean was terrified, terrified of what he felt for Cas, or that he wanted Cas all the time, not just when one of them had broken up with someone.

“I don’t know, C,” he starts, “something just changed. Not with Cas, but with me, you know. This last time, when Lisa broke up with me, I thought it was just going to be the same as it had been. And it wasn’t. Maybe she was right.”

“Who? Lisa? What did she say?”

“She said me and Cas were too codependent. Maybe she saw through the whole thing, I don’t know. But we never, Charlie, I swear I never cheated on her, I wouldn’t do that.”

“I get it. So what’s the problem though? Neither of you are dating anyone right now?”

Dean feels like he swallowed a rock, and it’s lodged in his throat, making it hard to breathe, to swallow.

“I just, it’s not me. You know? I’m not, I don’t know. I’m not into- I don’t, fuck, I don’t know.”

Charlie looks concerned.

“You’re afraid.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’re afraid to be into Cas, because you want to be straight.”

Fuck.

“I don’t know. Yeah. No. Maybe.”

Charlie sighs heavily, moving from the chair across from him to right next to him, plopping down on the sofa.

“Listen dude, take it from someone who pretended to be someone they weren’t for a long long time: it’s not worth it. Like, none of us are going to feel any differently about you if you don’t identify that way. You have to know that. Or is it more about how you feel about yourself?”

“That one. And I can’t be,” he swallows the words, “I’m not into men.”

“But you do seem to be into Cas, who identifies as a man,” Charlie points out.

“But I wasn’t ever before. It’s something that you’re born with, you can’t just suddenly be that way.”

“You have a lot of learning to do,” Charlie takes his hand, “And while I’m not the most qualified, I can help you through this. It’s a weird time, but you know I’ve got you no matter what right?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Wanna go to the LGBT center?”

Dean balks.

“Uh, I don’t know about that.”

“I’m not gonna pressure you, but it might help to talk to people who’ve had a similar experience to you. Like, I’m happy to talk this through with you, but I’ve pretty much known I’m gay forever, never really had the in-between phase. They’re really great people.”

Dean thinks about it. Fuck it, what does he have to lose, really?

“Okay. Let’s go.”

He does have a lot to learn. The people at the center really are nice, and he talks to them for a couple of hours, while Charlie holds his hand the whole time. He’s very lucky to have her. They give him some books to read, tell him a whole lot that he and his feelings are valid (he’s still getting used to that idea), and tell Dean to come back if he ever needs anything. He lets Charlie drive home so he can read some of the stuff they gave him. It was a lot less cut and dry than he had thought. It turns out he was pretty uneducated about the whole thing. Fuck, he has no idea what he’s even doing. He doesn’t know how to do any of this. He tells Charlie that.

“That’s pretty normal, dude. We aren’t all completely confident all the time like you are.”

“That’s not me, that’s Cas,” Dean laughs, and then immediately feels like he got punched in the stomach.

Charlie looks at him sympathetically as she gets ready for work. He stares around at the bright posters and Funko pops that line her walls. He wishes he could be a superhero like in the movies, their problems are always solved with lasers, which is pretty cool.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asks her. She nods.

“Don’t, um, don’t tell anyone about this. I mean, I guess everyone we know will find out one way or the other, but about all this stuff today, about me and Cas.”

Charlie kisses the top of his head as she heads for the door.

“We’ll only go down that road when you’re ready, it’ll always be safe with me.”

Dean feels like he’s run a marathon after Charlie leaves, but he doesn’t want to face Benny or Sam when they get home, so he shuts himself in his room for the rest of the evening, trying desperately to think about himself, and not the blue-eyed guy across town who he may have just irrevocably fucked things up with.

He doesn’t want to think about that possibility, because honestly? It hurts a little too much to even think about.


	15. Hear Me Now

People find out about his and Cas’ fight more quickly than Dean expected. Cas must’ve been talking to Charlie and Benny about it. Benny didn’t say much, but he did ask Dean the Monday after their fight if he needed anything, and gripped his shoulder in the way that only Benny could, assuring him that everything would be okay without any words.

Dean’s never been more grateful for them.

Sam though? That wasn’t as easy. And Dean still has no idea how he even found out about what happened.

“Hey man,” he slaps Sam on the back as he passes by his seat at the kitchen counter. He’s exhausted, and planting himself in front of the TV is exactly what the doctor ordered. Sam doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even react when Dean sits down and turns on Netflix. It takes Dean a couple of minutes to register that Sam isn’t speaking, even to tell him to turn it down, and when he turns to look at him, he can see Sam is hunched over, in the telltale deliberately ignoring Dean way.

“What’s up Sam?” Dean lifts himself off the couch to get a look at him, Sam still says nothing. Are you fucking kidding? Dean just wants to know ten seconds of peace, why is everyone in his life making that absolutely impossible?

“Sam,” Dean drags himself off the couch and stands across from him on the other side of the counter, “Earth to Sam, what’s going on?”

Sam looks up at him, and he’s so clearly furious that it takes Dean aback, he is not used to seeing him that angry, especially not seemingly directed towards him.

“Dean, for someone that’s so smart, that has a fancy engineering degree and does math all day, why aren’t you smarter?”

Dean blinks, taking a step back at the venom of Sam’s words.

“Uh,” he stutters unhelpfully, looking around at the empty room, hoping that maybe the couch or one of the chairs will save him, “Sam, what do you-”

“Cas dude, _Cas_? Are you kidding me, you broke up with Cas?”

“Cas and I weren’t-”

“You know I’m, not stupid right?”

What is happening right now? Surely, _surely_ Sam hasn’t suspected what was going on. He had always been so careful around Sam, there was no way…

“I don’t know what you mean-”

“You’ve been acting weird about Cas for months, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, you had finally gotten off your ass and done something about how you feel about him. And then I hear that you got into a fight and you aren’t even talking? What the fuck Dean? Like you can ruin your own life I guess, I think it’s stupid but whatever, but what about me? Like now Cas won’t even be a part of my life. And that sucks! He hasn’t even met Jess yet!”

Dean is so stunned by this turn of events that he can’t speak.

“Wait, you thought me and Cas…were dating?? Since, since when?”

“I don’t know, since a while after you and Lisa broke up. I was surprised it took so long.”

“What? I, Sam, I’m not computing what’s happening right now.”

Sam rolls his eyes, still angry at Dean, but not angry enough to fully give him the silent treatment.

“You were always happier with Cas than you were with Lisa, Dean. I always thought it was obvious, but I guess I’m just smarter than you when it comes to this stuff.”

“You got me there, I guess.”

“It’s okay Dean. To grow, you know.”

Dean huffs a little at that, it’s pretty sappy but also really…wise? For his seventeen-year-old brother to be giving him advice like this.

“Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Good, you should go think about it and then call Cas and apologize.”

“You know,” Dean turns to him, “You’re my brother, how do you know it wasn’t something that Cas did?”

Sam smiles at Dean, the first smile he had given him.

“Because I know you, and I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but I also know you’re scared. And you don’t have to be. Not with Cas.”

“When did you get so smart?”

“All that Calculus tutoring.”

Dean grins a little, looking at the ground.

Dean had always thought that he had done well considering the circumstances. He had raised his brother, gone to college, gotten a good job, had amazing friends, had a steady girlfriend. Then, this unexpected thing happened. This guy, who was the epitome of punk rock, waltzed into his life his freshman year of college, and for a long time he was just a part of Dean’s friends group, weaving his way into the fabric of Dean’s life, until that day that they had come up with their agreement, when they were twenty years old and Dean was white knuckling it the whole time. That was probably the time the Dean had fallen over the edge, but time had slowed down, he hadn’t realized it until it was far too late, and now he had no idea what to do, there was no way that he could stop himself, because Cas was just a part of his life, he was at the foundation. What would he do if he couldn’t go see bad horror movies with Cas? If he couldn’t eat takeout at 3am and then feel like shit in the morning with Cas? If he couldn’t watch Cas perform and feel like he was walking on air because he was so fucking proud of Cas, if he couldn’t smell Cas’ hair, if he couldn’t stain his hands with hair dye, trying to dye Cas’ hair some crazy color in Dean’s bathroom, if he couldn’t make fun of Charlie for passing out face down on the floor with Cas, if he couldn’t kiss Cas, if he couldn’t bite the underside of Cas’ ear, if he couldn’t get fucked by, or fuck Cas, if he couldn’t trace all the details on his body, from freckles to ridges, to notches, to ink. Cas was as much a part of him as Dean was a part of Cas, they hadn’t realized that they had been building up to each other, but they had been, and now if they tried to break apart, everything would crumble. But Dean couldn’t admit that he was in love with Cas, he couldn’t do that, because that would mean admitting something about himself that he had always been terrified of, something that his father had made him hate about himself, something that he had always said he would never let become a part of his identity. He had told Cas for years that he was straight except when either of them broke up with someone, that was the only time, he thought Cas saw through that, and now he was realizing that everyone saw through it, not just Cas. Even Sam saw through it. But unlearning years of prejudice and fear of being who you are is hard, it doesn’t happen in a day. He owes Cas a little growth, bot just to call him right now, when every part of him wants to do just that. He needs to actually figure some shit out before he does that.

Dean is pretty lucky. He has a better support system, a better family, then he ever thought he would, but that family isn’t complete without Cas. It would never be fully whole until he fixed this whole fucking mess.

___________

Dean’s new goal of personal growth fucking sucks.

He had been real gung-ho about it in the beginning, trying constantly to “better” himself and learn some better behaviors, unlearn some of the toxic ones. Sometimes it really works, and sometimes he ends up watching three hours of Tiktok in bed. Growing pains was probably a good word for it. Yeah, he likes to call it growing pains.

Eventually the growing pains continue to worsen, so he does what any responsible and mature adult who’s learning about themselves would do: he gets a tattoo.

Dean saunters into Pamela’s shop one sunny Saturday with his head low, knowing the second she saw him he was going to be in a world of trouble. Look, it’s not like he’s trying to skip out on her, things have just been….well, terrible isn’t a good excuse, because then she would start asking questions, and he just can’t bear to tell that story again, not having Cas in his life anymore is bad enough, let alone the looks that their friends give him when he tells them why. 

Pamela’s shop is much the same as it was the last time he had visited, when Cas had started on his sleeve and wanted Dean there to distract him from the worst of the blackwork. Punk music is blaring on the stereo, lots of bright pieces adorned the walls, contrasting directly with the dark blue walls and the black and white tiled floor. The whole place smelled like ink and disinfectant, and he had barely taken two steps inside before he heard a roar from the reception desk.

“Dean fuckin Winchester,” Ash stands and basically throws himself into Dean’s arms, even though they had seen each other last month at Ellen’s, you would’ve thought they hadn’t seen each other in around a decade or so. 

“Hey man, how’s it-”

“What the hell are you doing here? Pam’s gonna freak.”

“She’s gonna skin me is what you mean.”

Ash grins, running his hands through his hair.

“Shit, she’s with…well, she’s with a client right now, I’ll let her know-”

“Nah that’s all right,” Dean settles down on the leather couch, “I can wait until she’s done.”

Ash ignores him and heads to the back anyway. He can barely hear over the Ramones playing through the shop, but he definitely hears Pamela scream “WHAT?” and then her telltale laugh. He knows he’s gonna get his ass beat by her, and not in a good way.

Look, it’s not like he wanted to fall off of seeing her, but this place always felt like it belonged more to Cas than it did to him, and he felt like he needed some…space from anything to do with Cas. Not like he could escape him, when half the time Dean would come out of his room to find Cas passed out on his couch in nothing but his underwear, making Dean’s stomach tear itself apart, half with anger, half with sadness. You know, normal way to feel.

All part of growth, he tells himself. Well, he got it from a book one of the guys at the LGBT center recommended to him, he’s been going there a lot since…everything.

Ash returns with a broad grin still on his face, so Dean has some hope that he’ll escape death by Pamela.

“She wants to see you. Client’s a regular so don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, sure man. Thanks.”

The hall leading to Pamela’s studio is brightly lit, with bright splotches of her artwork on the walls here too. It was one of the things he had always loved about Pamela, that her art didn’t stop with the skin, but was on the walls as well. She had painted him a stylized modern art piece for his thirtieth birthday that hung proudly in the living room, and she always looked so proud every time she saw it.

Dean steps back towards Pamela’s tattooing room, he rounds the corner, sees Pamela’s dark hair and leafy green flowered arms and then sees the one person on earth that he was sure he wasn’t going to run into here. His hair is neon yellow now, so much brighter than what Dean is used to, but it’s him, getting something done on his forearm, and looking stony faced at Dean as a needle punches Dean in the chest like it’s punching Cas in the arm. He could tell Cas knew it was going to be him, but he’s so thrown by seeing him, the fact that they would have the same angsty idea to visit Pamela after what had gone down makes him feel like his throat is closing, like he’s just eaten bad shrimp or something.

“Dean Winchester,” Pamela is looking right through him, as usual, and he had never had a good poker face for her anyway, so he’s sure he looks really cool calm and collected right now.

“Hey Pam. Uh. Hey Cas.”

“Dean,” they don’t look at each other, and the energy is so weird and Dean hates this, he absolutely hates it, and he knows it’s by Pamela’s design.

“Well where the hell have you been?” Pamela asks, cutting through the tension like a knife cuts through soft butter.

Dean tries to talk over the buzz of the needle going into Cas’ arm, he also tries his best not to look at what exactly Cas is getting done. There was a time, not long ago, where Cas would have called him when he was sitting in the waiting room of the shop, while Pamela was sketching, and would ask him franticly for his opinion, asking if he thought it sounded stupid or the placement was going to be wrong. And Dean would always comfort him, tell him he couldn’t wait to see the new piece, that he would pick up some Aquaphor on his way home and would come over to Cas’ place with some takeout and they could watch bad movies. Cas would always sigh into the phone, breathing in a way that could’ve been relief, could’ve been appreciation, could’ve been something that they were far too terrified to ever talk about. But those days were gone now, and he had found out about this tattoo on accident, because they were both total dumbasses and had all the same hiding places.

“You know, here and there,” the answer is such bullshit that even he rolls his eyes, garnering a boisterous laugh from Pamela, as she takes away her hands from Cas’ skin.

“Well at least you know it’s as stupid as I do,” she grins at him, “You come in to get a piece?”

“Uh,” Dean clears his throat, he really doesn’t want to talk about this in front of Cas, “Yeah I was thinking of getting something small on my bicep. Easy to cover, the suits at the plant probably wouldn’t be into a face tattoo.”

“Great,” Pamela’s back at Cas’ skin, pulling it taught, like the way Dean sometimes did when they…nevermind, “What’re you thinking?”

“Oh uh. It can wait, since you’re with-”

“He doesn’t want to say it in front of me,” Cas cuts him off, his eyes looking past Dean, unfocused, still blue enough for Dean to get lost in. He’s being dumb. It’s not like they broke up, or were even together. He tries not to remember that’s exactly what they had both wanted and Dean was too afraid to take.

“No, it’s not-”

“Then what is it?”

Dean pauses, clearing his throat again.

“Okay you two, knock it off,” Pamela says before Dean can answer, “I just wanted to give you a hard time, we’re almost done here anyway.”

Dean takes that as his cue to scurry back to the front, and he hopes he imagined the way Cas’ shoulders sink down when he walks out the door.

It doesn’t take that long, just thirty minutes until Cas is looking at whatever’s on his arm in the mirror and praising Pamela for her work. Five more minutes and he comes back, wrapped and ready to go, paying Pamela and Ash with a smile, giving them both hugs and turning towards the door. Dean is not planning on looking at him, because staring too much would give him away, because he’s always been so great about hiding the way he feels. But Cas’ magnetic pull lifts his eyes up anyway, and the eye contact that follows is something Dean can only hope to forget with time. It burns into him, the weight of not being Cas’ first call anymore, the idea that he called someone else to have his tattoo freakout, the idea that he didn’t call anyone at all. It sorta falls down like a ton of bricks, something that he had been putting off thinking about, avoiding until now, until it was right in front of his face, with nowhere to go.

“Cas,” he grabs Cas’ unwrapped forearm as he opens the door, the bell tinkling loudly as he does. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ash and Pamela back away towards her studio room, eyes still trained on Dean and Cas, but seeming to know that this might require a little privacy. Did it though? Dean had no fucking idea what to say next, all the things he wanted to say sounded hollow right now, or got caught in his throat as he tried to say them.

“Dean,” Cas has an eyebrow raised, his yellow hair being blown all over the place by the wind blowing in from the street. 

“I-” Dean tries, before cutting himself off, he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what to say, fuck fuck fuck he’s going to fuck this up again and he desperately doesn’t want to do that, he doesn’t want to fuck this up again dammit he wants Cas back he wants Cas back he wants he wants he wants.

“Cas, I really, um. I wanted to say that….”

“You don’t have to say anything, Dean. You want space, you got it.”

“But it’s, I’m just working through some stuff right now.”

“I get it Dean. I really do get it, but I feel like we both just need some time.”

“Cas-”

Against his better judgement, he lets Cas leave, he lets him walk quickly down the street and round the corner.

“You just let him leave?” Pamela’s voice is right next to him, and he jumps.

“Yeah. I mean, I guess. He’ll talk to me when he wants to.”

Pamela looks at Ash, who, completely unhelpfully, just shrugs.

“You know that’s bullshit, don’t you?”

Dean looks up at her, unsurprised at her directness, but sorta surprised that it was directed at him. She had always been softer with him than she had with anyone else.

“Is it? I don’t want to pressure him to hang out with me if he doesn’t-”

“Dean, I don’t mean to be blunt or anything, well, yeah I do actually, but you two have been pining for each other for years and seem to think that no one has noticed.”

Dean swallows.

“What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t really have to tell me anything. Your interaction and his face when Ash said you were here said enough.”

“Looked like he had seen a ghost,” Ash says from his perch on the jewelry counter, which he immediately slides off when Pamela gives him the death stare.

Dean doesn’t say anything to that, it sorta hurts too much to think about it. He feels like he is a ghost, like he’s turned into a ghost. He didn’t know who he was when he thought about how he felt about Cas, and now he doesn’t know who he is when he doesn’t have Cas. So either way, he’s fucked.

Pamela seems to read the turmoil in his face, and she softens by degrees as she looks at him.

“Okay, okay. I’ll lay off. You came in here for a piece, and that’s my job. What are you looking to get?”

“I want, um, I want to get the Scooby Doo logo on my arm. In color.”

There’s a heavy pause, then Pam and Ash just start laughing.

“What? Don’t judge me.”

“Sorry, sorry. I just, thought you were coming in for something angsty, but that’s just never been you, has it?”

“Oh I can be angsty as hell Pam, I just don’t want something angsty on me forever.”

“Alright, I can do the Scooby Doo symbol, give me a few to draw it up.”

Dean waits for Pamela to sketch the piece, making small talk with Ash and challenging him to a Mario Kart tournament the next week that he knows they’ll all lose, it was stupid to ever challenge Ash to anything, because he always crushed at whatever he attempted, even if he had never tried it before.

Right as Dean considers challenging Ash to an arm-wrestling contest (because he had been embarrassed at Christmas), Pamela stands up from the slanted desk behind the counter and slaps Dean’s tattoo down in front of her.

It’s perfect, because it’s Pamela, and he’s in the chair twenty minutes later getting Scooby’s collar tag inked permanently on his arm. He really wishes he had someone with him. Like someone there for moral support. He really wishes Cas was here.

“So what happened,” Pamela’s gloves hand move his skin into the ideal position, putting needle to skin. The process was fascinating, he had always wanted to learn more about it.

“We just got into an argument, it got ugly, and now we aren’t talking.”

“You want to know what I think?”

“I don’t really feel like I have a choice.”

“Well yeah, you don’t. Think of me like the bartender in those movies, only I have a needle in my hands.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

“You and Cas have been inseparable as long as I’ve known you, and you shouldn’t let whatever this is get in the way of that.”

Dean huffs a breath.

“If only it were that simple.”

“Then make it simple.”

Dean considers her, thinking about how he would even go about fixing this shattered fucking mess of his own design.

“I guess I’m just scared of things changing, which they already have, I guess. I’ve been trying to grow or whatever but I don’t know how. But I’m scared of, I don’t know Pam, I’m scared of a lot of things.”

“What’s that phrase? If it doesn’t scare the shit out of you, you shouldn’t be doing it or something? Who said that?”

“Aristotle probably.”

Pamela leans away from him to laugh. He forgot how much he missed her.

“You have a point,” he concedes, “I just don’t like change.”

“I know that, that’s why it’s taken this long and a fight with Cas to get you in my chair. And even then you’re getting Scooby Doo.”

“Don’t hate on Scooby Doo.”

“But seriously,” Pamela is back to work, and Dean doesn’t hate the feeling as much as he thought he would, “If it scares the shit out of you, maybe that’s the growth you’ve been looking for.”

“Fuck finding a therapist, Pam, I just need to come here more often.”

“You sure as hell do, I can’t believe it’s been like six months since I’ve seen you, you live like ten minutes away!”

“I really am sorry.”

“Yeah yeah, you should be. If you promise not to let it happen again, I’ll let you walk out of here.”

“I swear.”

“Fine, well you’re all done, check it out before I wrap you up, huh?”

Dean stands, a little wobbly from the aftermath of the adrenaline and his nerves. Sitting on his right bicep is the perfect replica of Scooby’s collar. It was kinda cheesy, but also literally perfect for him. And hell, what’s wrong with being in touch with your childhood joys sometimes? The answer is absolutely nothing.

Pamela carefully wraps him up and leads him to the front, where Ash is playing Nintendo Switch and has his feet up on the counter.

“If you keep putting your feet on the counter I’m going to cut them off.”

Ash looks sheepish as he sits up straight.

“Sorry Pam.”

“How much do I owe you?”

“Let’s do 150, it’s less than my rate but I can’t help but cut you a deal for your first one.”

“I won’t get used to it,” he pulls out his wallet as he speaks and hands over his card. Pamela swipes it and he gives a fifty percent tip because Cas always told him to tip your artist well.

“Remember what I said, Dean,” Pamela tells him as she hands him his aftercare instructions and his receipt, “Life’s too short for all this, and you and Cas are worth the fight you know?”

He does know. He’s starting to feel a little hollow again, reminded of the run in he just had with Cas.

“I do. Thanks Pam, I’ll see you around. See you, Ash.”

“I’m serious about Mario Kart.”

“So am I, I’ll beat your ass.”

Ash’s laughter echoes in his ears as he walks towards the Impala.

His tattoo is beloved by everyone the second they see it. Even Sam gets over his anger at Dean for long enough to laugh at it. As much as he loves it, it’s a reminder of what he still has to do, and the shit he still has to fix.


	16. Misery Business

Charlie’s the one that tips him off about the gig. It’s some secret show they’re doing at a bar in town, not on any social media. He doesn’t know if it’s a good idea to go, but Pamela’s words had lit a fire in him that he knew nothing but making up with Cas would quench. He has to at least try, you know, has to at least give it a shot.

So he resolves himself to go to this show, catch Cas afterward and just lay it all out on the line.

Fuck, that scares the shit out of him.

But what’s scarier, telling Cas that he may have falling head over heels over a cliff for him, or not having Cas in his life? One gives him butterflies, the other gives him anxiety. So that answers that question.

He sneaks to the venue right as the show is about to start, and he feels, throughout the whole set, with the people moving like water around him, streaming towards the door that he’s like a rock, unmovable. He uproots himself one step at a time and pays the cover, heading into the bar with as much anxiety as he had the day he graduated from college.

He doesn’t know how Shock Television’s popularity has skyrocketed so fast, but it has, and Dean can barely squeeze in the door, with his sweaty hands and his racing heart. He forces his way towards the bar, where he can at least see the stage, and he can see Charlie and Benny. And he can see Cas. It had been about a month since their last run in, and Dean had only spent every waking second thinking about it.

Cas, predictably, had dyed his hair again, this time it was electric blue, that was reminiscent of his eyes, and Dean stares at him so hard that he even feels like it’s weird, but breaking contact from him feels like a heartbreak, which Dean can’t stand much more of.

The place almost crashes down with the volume of the set and the energy of the crowd. They scream the lyrics with Charlie, and sway gently when she and Cas sing their duet. Dean’s heart nearly gives out when he hears Cas sing again, it just steals him for what he knows he has to do.

They play three encores this time, and at the end of each one, Dean’s heart starts to race, he’s so desperately afraid of what has to happen when they finish playing that he can hardly hear the final song.

When they take their final bow, Dean immediately tries to get to the backstage area, but there’s actual security in his way, so he loops around the back, intent to just wait them out. He’s foiled there too, another security guard who doesn’t even let him get close to the backstage door. Fuck. What does he do now?

He considers his options. One, he could hang around here and maybe miss him if he leaves through an exit that Dean can’t get to, or he could go to the place he knew he’s end up, his house.

It feels weird, to get back in the Impala and drive to Cas’ little house on the beach, like it’s something forbidden. The site of their last fight, the place where this whole mess had started, when Dean had fallen too far over the edge to climb back up, where Dean hadn’t been in nearly three months.

He parks by the house, not in his usual spot, he wanted Cas to see him there, no surprises. He resolves to wait Cas out. He has to come home sometime, and Dean has to see him, has to try and fix this, and Pamela’s words about fear echo in his head. Cas is worth the fear, he’s always been worth the fear. Dean was just too dumb to see that.

He waits for around an hour until Cas’ shitty car pulls up next to him. Dean sees his outline in his porch light as he considers the Impala, and then carefully moves towards his front door.

“Cas!” Dean scrambles out of the car, nearly falling in the rocky driveway that flows seamlessly into sand, “Cas wait.”

“Dean.”

Dean stands at the bottom of the steps leading up to Cas’ porch. Dean doesn’t know how he’s lived without speaking to him for so long, he feels like he wants to tell him everything that’s happened, from the near accident at work two weeks ago to the fact that Sam passed every one of his classes with all As and was top of his class again.

Cas hair blows in a little breeze, it reminds Dean of the ocean.

“Cas, listen. I have something to say,” he takes the steps up to Cas’ porch so he can face him, and Cas’ eyes are far away, not making eye contact with him.

“I saw you at the show,” Cas says quietly, watching the quiet ocean, still not meeting Dean’s eyes.

“I thought I could catch you there, Charlie told me about the show. There was too much security. Listen-”

He breaks off. The fear was back, boiling in his stomach like hot oil. Was he brave enough to take this leap? To say the words aloud, first to Cas, and then to everyone else? He had to be.

“You were right, Cas. I’m not straight. Fuck, I haven’t been straight ever, but I’ve never wanted to admit that. And being away from you has been the worst thing, because I want to be with you every fucking day. I want to tell you everything, hear everything from you. But I, I don’t want to go back to the way things were, you know? Because I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. To say that I love you and that, that I’m bi.”

The second the words leave his lips, Dean suddenly feels thirty pounds lighter. He’s never said those words aloud, only mouthed them to himself in the mirror. He thought everyone was making it up when they said that coming out felt like a lifted weight, but it actually, really does.

He’s so lost in the new experience he’s having that he almost forgets to look at Cas’ face to read his reaction. It’s an expression he knows well, Cas has the look on his face that usually came when Dean kissed him: a level of softness that Dean never thought could be directed towards him.

“Fuck Dean, I love you so much. I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Cas pitches forward, hugging Dean tightly and pressing his lips to the side of his face. Dean does one better and kisses him full on the mouth. This kiss is somehow better than New Year’s, somehow better than the kisses at the party, somehow better than any of the million times they had kissed before this, because this time there wasn’t an expiration date, there wasn’t an agreement, and there weren’t any rules.

The ocean laps quietly at the sand, reminding Dean to stay grounded and not just fly away, but he’s so tightly wrapped around Cas he doesn’t think he would make it very far.

“Can we burn that document now?” Cas asks against Dean’s mouth, and Dean laughs quietly, not wanting to break the bubble of bliss they had created.

“Let’s throw it in the ocean, seems more fitting that way.”

“Hmm, sounds like a deal. Come on.”

Cas pulls Dean into his house, and rummages through one of his desk drawers, pulling out the piece of paper they had signed eight years before, a piece of paper that would change them both forever. Seems a little weird, looking at it now, to think of all that had changed since then.

They walk out of Cas’ door and kick off their shoes and socks, walking toward the ocean. Even though it’s mid-May, it’s still pretty cold, so Dean shudders as his feet hit the water, soaking the bottom of his jeans.

“Let’s do this,” Dean grins at Cas, and each of them take one half of the paper, signed and stamped by a notary, and tear it in two. They crumple up their halves and lob them into the ocean, watching them disappear into the dark water.

“Send it to the sharks.”

He takes Cas’ hand, and the heat of it warms him to the very tips of his toes.

They stand in the ocean for a while. All he can hear is waves. But this time, that’s okay.


	17. All I Wanted

“I don’t wanna do this.”

“Dean.”

“They already know anyway, do we really have to do this?”

“Of course not, it really is up to you. We do this on your terms.”

Dean sighs, considering Cas, who is standing in front of his bathroom mirror, putting some kind of product in his hair that Dean has learned he spends way too much money on.

He looks even better than usual today, wearing his leather jacket and a Misfits t shirt that Dean had given him for his last birthday. Dean has the urge to kiss him and mess up his carefully placed green hair, but they were already late enough as it is, they didn’t need Ellen jumping down their throats even more than she would be anyway.

“Fine, but I’m going to complain the whole time.”

Cas grins, moving over to his bed to lace up his shoes, Dean favorite pair of black Converse, not that it matters, but it does to Dean.

“You can complain as much as you want. I don’t think anyone is expecting anything different from you, anyway.”

“That’s probably true. You ready?”

“You can’t rush perfection,” Cas takes one last look in the mirror by his closet, “But yeah, I’m good.”

Dean holds out his hand, which Cas takes without hesitation. It’s weird Dean is still getting used to this, he’s still getting used to the idea that this is something that he’s allowed, that it’s okay to hold Cas’ hand when he wants to. That hold Cas’ hand, touching Cas this way isn’t going to make him explode or spontaneously combust.

There are balloons outside of Ellen’s, and a big banner that Dean and Benny had nearly broken their necks hanging the day before. _Congratulations Jo!_

“This feels weird, Cas.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

And Dean believes him.

Ellen’s is decked out with all the traditional, kinda cheesy graduation stuff. There’s an entire corkboard of pictures of Jo, a cake, a whole table of food, and the room is already loud with music from what Dean knows is Charlie’s Spotify.

Jo had insisted on having a small party, with only the people she knew and liked best, who just happened to be the people that Dean knew and liked best. Pamela and Ash and talking to Ellen at the bar, Benny and Sam are arm wrestling, with Charlie and Jo cheering them on like they’re watching the Superbowl. And yet, Dean still feels like he wants to turn around and run until he hits the ocean.

“Dean! Cas!” Jo comes running towards them, and Dean breaks contact with Cas just long enough to spin Jo around in a hug.

“Congrats Jo,” Cas gives her a hug as well, kissing her on the cheek, “It’s good to have you home.”

“It’s good to be home, where the hell have you two been?” her eyes travel down to where their hands are joined.

“Cas takes forever to get ready, I was planning on being here fifteen minutes early.”

“That’s a lie, he was laying in bed until twenty minutes ago.”

Jo laughs at that, and Dean clears his throat.

“Listen, I know it’s your grad party, and I don’t want to upstage you-”

“Oh my god, you aren’t going to upstage me. This is a grad party, not my fucking wedding.”

“But I just,” Dean is shifting from foot to foot, not sure what to say, or how to say it, “I wanted to say something, but it can seriously wait, we don’t have to-”

Jo cuts him off, taking his face in her hands.

“Listen to my words. You say what you want. You are not upstaging me. Thank you for asking, but you aren’t. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Dean can’t make himself say it for a good hour. They greet everyone, and he thinks maybe he can get away with just the hand holding, maybe he doesn’t need to say anything else. But then the idea of leaving without saying anything makes him feel sick for some reason, so he figures he’s got to listen to his brain and just do it, rip the band aid off.

Ugh, listening to his emotions sucks, this was all a lot easier when he could pretend to be an ostrich and stick his head in the sand every time something got uncomfortable.

So, after Jo cuts her cake and Ellen cries a little over her little girl growing up, Dean knocks a fork on his bottle of beer, and everyone’s eyes go to him.

He feels like he’s in the middle of a spotlight, and he’s never been the one who likes to be onstage. But this isn’t something that Cas can do for him, this is something that’s his to do, and his alone. He takes a steadying breath, feeling less like a person and more like a little boat being tossed in a storm tossed ocean. But Cas was his anchor.

“So um. I just wanted you all to know something. And some of you know it already, but I wanted to tell you all because you’re my best friends, my family. I’m bi.”

There they are, two words that he never thought he could say aloud. He braces for impact, actually closing his eyes so he didn’t have to see anyone’s reaction.

Instead of words, he feels arms around him, and he recognizes them without even looking. First Charlie, who squeezes him like she never wants to let him go, then Benny, who’s shaking a little, then Ellen and Pamela, that remind him of the hugs his mother gave him, then Ash who slaps him on the back, then Jo, who’s tender and soft, then Sam, who hugs him so tight that Dan can’t help but return it. When he opens his eyes, his caught in the biggest group hug he’s ever experienced. He shuts his eyes and just experiences it, experiences the love and acceptance that he’s been unknowingly been searching for for years.

He’s not sure how long it takes from them to all break apart, and when they do, he’s not the only one that’s wiping his eyes on the back of his hands.

He takes Sam aside almost immediately, but before he can get into his speech he’s prepared for the last two days, Sam cuts him off with another hug, and some words that nearly knock him flat on his back,

“I’m really proud of you, Dean. I love you.”

Somehow, those words are exactly what Dean needs to hear, and he didn’t even know it.

“I love you too, Sammy. Thanks for uh, yeah, understanding I guess.”

Sam laughs.

“I love you, but you’re never going to be a speech writer.”

“Okay shithead.”

After this revelation, he finds himself outside in the cool evening air a little while later, trying to pull himself together. (He just keeps randomly crying, how weird is that?)

Cas finds him, predictably, after just a few minutes, as he’s leaning against the brick wall of Ellen’s, thinking about how things have somehow completely changed and don’t feel different at all.

“You okay?”

Dean takes a second to just look at Cas. Look at everything from his blue hair to his blue eyes, which are full of concern for Dean.

“I really love you, Cas, you know that right?”

Cas smiles at him, bridging the gap between them with two long strides. He kisses Dean, long and slow, and Dean leans into it, savoring the fact that the agreement had been tossed into the ocean two weeks before, when Dean had finally been man enough to tell Cas what they both knew was true.

“I really love you,” Cas says quietly, and Dean can’t help but smile.

They break apart after a while, hearing Charlie yell something about cheese fries at Benny from inside.

“You ready?” Cas extends his hand to Dean, and this time Dean is the one that takes it without hesitation.

They go back into the bar, where everything is still loud and boisterous and hot, and Dean laughs and drinks and eats too much food with his friends, his family, and feels the weight of Cas next to him throughout the whole night. He lets himself relax, he lets himself breathe, he lets himself be free, and he lets himself be who he is for the first time.

He’s still scared shitless. He knows he’ll still worry about everything he can’t control. But with this family, with Sam and Charlie and Benny and Ellen and Jo and Ash and Pamela. With Cas. He feels like that fear is less consuming, and more something that he can overcome. 

There’s a thrumming, humming in his body. It ebbs and flows like the wave of an ocean, it crests and falls and rises again. For as long as he could remember, that feeling had been there, and he had spent a lot of years trying to force it into a little part of himself, so there was no room for the ebb and flow, no room for the crest, no room for the change. He hid it away in fear of the low tide. He used to think that’s what made him strong, the ability to keep that part of himself hidden, away from change. But now he’s realized that the wave is just as much a part of him as anything else, and that he’s not a boat that’s getting rocked in a roiling sea, but the actual wave itself, and that he was ever-changing, fluid like water, like the ocean that crashes outside Cas’ house. And for the first time in his life, he’s okay with that, and he’s ready to roll with whatever changes come his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Please please go check out all of marsajar's truly gorgeous art on [tumblr](https://marsajar.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://heliodean.tumblr.com/) too!


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